JACK 

ONE OF US 

Oi GILBERT FRANKAU 



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Book- ■ V^ - 



6i/3 . 



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COEWIGHT DEPOSIE 



JACK : 

ONE OF US 



His patronymic dare I not disclose. 

For, an I called him Smith or Jones or Brown, 
And his mild antics caused the wrath of those 

Who rule their lives by Mrs. Grundy* s frown. 
The awful laws of England would impose 

Scale-costs and damages for half the town; 
To compensate the Joneses, Browns, or Smiths 

Whose friends had traced them through the 
muse's myths. 



JACK : 

ONE OF US 

A NOVEL IN VERSE 
BY GILBERT FRANKAU 




NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



Y^hr 






COPYRIGHT, I9I2 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



All rights reserved 



THB- PLIMPTON 'PRESS 
NORWOOD»MASS*U'S<A 



//: 



gCI.A31(i437 



DEDICATION 



To every fellow-poetasting swanker, 
To each and all of that Pierian caucus 

Amidst whose choirs my virgin harpstrings 
hanker 
To raise some tintinnabulation raucous; 

To soulful chemist and to Laureate banker. 
To bards in Oklahoma and in Orcus, 

To Baudelaire, d'Annunzio and Heine, 

To penny- and to thousand-pound-a-liner; 



To Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Homer, Pope, 

To Seaman, Swinburne, Camoens, and Shelley, 

To him who first in advertising trope 
Extolled the virtues of an oxine jelly. 

To Milton, Alfred Austin, Laurence Hope, 
To Dante Alighieri and Corelli: 

I dedicate my primal epic poem 

In the preluding of this humble proem. 



2 yack ; One of Us 

But Byron, most to thee, than whom no rarer 
Spirit is found upon Elysium's plain ! 

To-day, none know thy *Childe' and none thy 
'Lara,' 
Thy Hebrews are melodious in vain ; 

For many mark the falling price of Para, 
Yet none the fall of Parisina slain. 

Save only I, what hour, to midnight's chiming, 

1 search thy cantos for forgotten rhyming. 



Maestro! hast thou used them all? hast toyed 
With every sound that rolls a stanza fleeter? 

Must I — whose songs on stronger wings are 
buoyed, 
Sounder of technique, and in scansion 
sweeter — 

Outstretch these hands across the sundering void 
To rape once more the magic of that metre 

Which thou, combining utile cum dulci, 

Did'st bone from my lamented confrere Pulci? 



Why not? Since in my mouth the gods renew 
The fires that came with thee, and with thee 
fled. 

Why not ? A century divides us — true — 
The scornful living from the scornful dead: 

And now my many trample on thy few. 
My Turkey bleedeth in thy Greece's stead; 



yack ; One of Us 3 

My tippler and my Jacobin betray 
The land thou counted'st cursed with Castle- 
reagh . . . 



But what's a hundred winters, more or less ? 

Fate gives the same old cards another shuffle : 
Thy Scotch reviewers are my Yellow Press, 

My pleated shirtfront is thy Mechlin ruffle; 
My Suffragettes, thy * Blues' in modern dress; 

Thy waltzers crave my double Boston's scuffle; 
My Don Juans are Gunners, Guards, or Sappers; 
Their Julias — widowettes ; their Haidees — 
flappers. 



It was thy wont with Paphian girls to dine — 
I also have been somewhat of a rip. 

Didst woo and win where ripes Ravenna's 
wine ? — 
Have I not hung on a signoras lip ? 

A club-foot was thy bane, a bridge-club mine; 
Harrovian thine, mine Eton's scholarship. 

Didst wander where the leaves in Tempe shook ? — 

I too am not unknown to Lunn and Cook. 



Thine on a Harrow tombstone, mine at Surley, 
Our kindred youth was spent in solitude. 



4 jfack .- One of Us 

Far from the ramping schoolboys' hurly-burly. 

As thine, my veering fancy was imbued 
With passion's hopes and passion's pangs too 
early. 

I had a Mary too, and raven-hued 
Was every tress of her. Alack! Love died 
The day she yielded them to peroxide! 



Thus are we knit by more than earthly ties, 
Geniuses both, if mine the pen more able; 

Dowered with an equal spell in ladies' eyes; 
Boasting the same locks of romantic sable ; 

Alike in pose, alike in garb and guise; 

Twin souls foregathered at the writing-table: 

Though mine the subtler wit, the keener irony. 

Thou, in thy prime, wast also fairly Byrony. 



Wherefore to thee, my prototype less gifted, 
I pay such homage as befits the great; 

And should some echo of my fame have drifted 
Down to the shadow-realm of Pluto's state, 

Where triple tongues of Cerberus uplifted 

Harass the pipe of bloodless scalds' debate — - 

Let these few stanzas, brother mine, assuage 

The jealous fury of thy rival rage. 



CANTO I 



Muses, like married men, must have their fling. 

My Muse is in my blood, a bold bacilla ; 
She is immune to every germ, the sting 

Of phagocyte is powerless to kill her. 
Vain are the doctored cheeses milkmen bring 

Each Sunday morn to my suburban villa; 
Vainly the lactic Lancers of Bulgary 
Strive to evict her from my little Mary. 



She's at her tricks again; the more's the pity; 

For I am bound upon another wheel, 
And jealous Madame Mammon of the City 

Disdains all lovers but the wholly leal. 
Curse on the microbe-nymph of lilt and ditty. 

That draws me from the courts of Mart and 
Deal 
And the thrice-aureate ways of her who bends, 
Warm on my mouth, her raining dividends ! 

5 



6 yack .• One of Us 

I would give twice the millions of a Cassel, 
Treble the billions of a Rhodes bequest, 
Could Frankfurt Ehrlich find one numbered 
vassal 
To rid my veins of this poetic pest. 
Alack! nor he, nor Metchnikoff, nor Massol, 

Nor Wasserman — before whose ghastly test 
Shudder bugs, beasties, streptococci, spir- 

achaetes — 
Have power to quench this inconvenient fire o* 
Keats. 



Science! not all your long research avails 
To staunch the flux of literary ranter. 

Your bromides cool no Glyn, no Cross, no Wales ; 
Your antitoxins curb no canto's canter; 

And I must bow me to the critics' flails. 
To friends' derision and relations' banter. 

Henceforth, till some one spots that heahng 
lymph. 

Noblesse oblige. Thy servant, fatal nymph! 



The hero whom I sing is commonplace. 

One of the many boys the Bath Club bar 
knows ; 

Adroit to drain the glass, to go the pace. 
To sup chez Oddy with demure sopranos; 



yack ; One of Us 7 

A sturdy pillar of our Island Race, 

A Paladin of Empire — and Romanos; 
Supremely casual, supremely slack; 
Answering to the christian name of Jack. 



His patronymic dare I not disclose: 

For, an I called him Smith, or Jones, or Brown, 
And his mild antics caused the wrath of those 

Who rule their lives by Mrs. Grundy's frown, 
The awful laws of England would impose 

Scale-costs and damages for half the town; 
To compensate the Joneses, Browns, or Smiths, 
Whose friends had traced them through the 
Muse's myths. 



Let it suffice then, that my boy was born 
Where purling Otter plashes to the sea 
Past sleepy village, and ancestral lawn 

Dotted with lilac-bush and cedar-tree ; 
'Midst hills whose sides loom misty in the dawn. 
And coombes where flirting foxgloves trap the 
bee; 
In that blessed land 'twixt Poppleford and Bud- 

leigh, 
Where the panned cream clots thickly on the 
chudleigh. 



8 yack ; One of Us 

There, 'midst the squires and squiresses of 
Devon, 

His father dwelt; a fine old English Tory 
Who feared the King, the Liberals, and Heaven; 

And read the Sunday lessons con amore. 
The lucky first of other brothers seven, 

His were the lands, the lineage, the glory 
Of wood and wild, beloved of bird and bunny; 
Towards whose maintenance he'd married 
money. 



'Twas said that in his youth he had been lavish 
Of diamond garter and of orchid-bunch ; 

Well-skilled the midnight knocker's prize to 
ravish, 
Well-trained the prowling proctor's paunch 
to punch; 

As keen upon the bottle as McTavish, 
A very Newnham-Davis over lunch : 

Not an Alsatian had been more skittish 

Than this much-married Briton of the British, 



Courted of neighbours, tenantry and parson; 

This M.F.H., this Justice of the Peace 
Who deemed the poacher's crime akin to arson, 

And trusted in the timing of the police ; 
Who had briefed Duke and F. E. Smith and 
Carson, 



yack .• One of Us g 

That trespass on his rights of way might cease; 
Nor e'er contrived to make his own life 

pleasant, 
Except by taking theirs from fox or pheasant. 



Such was Jack's father. Be it here confessed 
Myself, when younger, loved his mother 
dearly ; 

Yet now I scarce remember how she dressed. 
Or looked, or spoke, or did her hair; though 
clearly 

I recollect how much I was impressed 

When I was seventeen years old, or nearly, 

And thought myself romantically naughty 

Because she was another's wife, and forty. 



What of Jack's childhood? Croup and cough 
and cold, 

Mump, measle, laryngitis and diphtheria; 
These filled the local doctor's purse with gold. 

These caused his lady-mother mild hysteria. 
At nine he passed into St. Michael's fold 

Where Beetle blends the classic and the 
cheerier. 
Acting, as never acted brother Charles, 
Though twinkling eyes belie his fiercest snarls. 



10 jfack ; One of Us 

Thus his amorphous cubhood did embark 
On the tempestuous sea of schoolboy faction; 

He learned to wield a hockey-stick, to mark 
Each subtle nuance of a googly's action; 

While * Daddy' Peach and both the brothers 
Clarke 
Subdued his soul to Caesar and subtraction; 

His illnesses, of whatso'er categories, 

* Pussy' the matron cured with care and 'Greg- 
ory's.' 



Dear afternoons of hard-fought football tussles 
With rival * schools for sons of gentlemen ' ! 

Dear nights, when gorgeous girlhood from Miss 
Russell's 
Joined in our dancing-classes, eight to ten; 

Till young blood's red and riotous corpuscles 
Blushed in each flapper-finger for our ken! 

Ah me ! too soon our schoolboy bolt was shot, 

And Eton, Harrow, Marlborough, bagged the 
lot. 



For Jack 'twas Eton. Praise that kingly 
founder 
Whose statue stands in Upper Chapel Yard! 
Reverence those halls where every noble 
bounder, 
Dressed as the rainbow, spotted as the pard, 



yack ; One of Us ii 

Slouches uncurbed and rolls his swear-words 

rounder 
Than any private of the Irish Guard! 
For there, where bills are ninety pounds a 'half/ 
Love found him first, that love by men called 

'calf.' 



Think of him, just a fag as other fags! 

He 'played his times'; he passed at Cuckoo 
Weir; 
Idled in 'puppy-hole'; 'Got up to rags'; 

Envied the 'pops' at 'tap' consuming beer. 
He called his foolscap 'bumph,' his trousers 
'bags'; 
Turned to the shouted 'Boy' th' attentive 
ear — 
Finding that 'uppers,' if at times they smack 

well. 
Are not impervious to Crosse and Blackwell. 



Fast fled the years. He ceased to 'sock' and 
'fug'; 

No longer 'pi,' though tolerable at 'sap'. 
The black and blue that crowns the nameless 
'scug,' 

Was changed for many an ensanguined cap; 
First in his 'Div' save one, and that a 'tug,' 

Himself consorted with the bloods at 'tap': 
'Twas but a trick of some malicious fate, 
That reft him of the glory of the Eight. 



12 yack ; One of Us 

Shame that no Henley ever saw my Jack 

Flash past the booms, a nose ahead of Radley, 

When the slides answer to the sinews' crack 
And the Consuta dashes after madly! 

Shame on you, Dr. Gore, who gave the *sack' 
To that stout 'six' our 'seven' missed so sadly; 

And shame, thrice shame, upon that false 
divinity 

\Miose kisses gave the Ladies' Plate to Trinity! 



Amy! the hearts of men were yours in plenty, 
What made you turn to calf-love for a season? 

Did it befit a maid of eight-and-t\venty 
To rob a rising oarsman of his reason? 

Was there none other dolce far niente 

Save this, the blackest depth of female trea- 
son? 

Had not your brother — he, my hero's tutor — 

Warned you and warned, 'alumnus' wasn't 
neuter? 



You set your spell on Jack, and none suspected. 

You cast on him the light eye and the laic, 
Till sport and study were alike infected ; 

Blighted, athletic tasks and algebraic: 
Nor were his verses, as of yore, selected 

For excellent Iambic or Alcaic. 
You were the primal she : with you begins 
The tale of his successes, and his sins. 



CANTO II 



It was the Fourth of June, a festive scene, 
Eton commemorating her foundation. 

From Windsor Bridge to Hoppy D's, I ween, 
The High Street hummed ^;vith parent and 
relation. 

Hundreds had motored, more the t^selve-fifteen 
Disgorged upon the overcrowded station. 

Many an acti Umporis laudator 

Arrived to play the querulous spectator. 



Here came Financiers, PoUcemen from the Cape, 
Peers from the Backwoods, Freshers from the 
Cher, 

Bland Politicians, Men of Scarlet Tape, 
Diplomats, Dandies, Bullies of the Bar, 

Count].'-court Judges, Lords of Hop and Grape 
Subalterns, Bishops, Vendors of the Car. 

(Strange, how Bench, Army, Embassy, and Till, 

Bow do^n to them whose education's nil!) 

13 



14 yack ; One of Us 

Here with Etonians past and present mingled 
Many a dame of beauty, brains and birth; 

Nodded their plumes, their golden purses jingled, 
Flaunted the frocks of Paquin, Jay and Worth; 

Their faultless waists in faultless corsets tingled; 
Their lashes curled with mastic and with 
mirth ; — 

For all were stars of England's smartest set. 

And half their bills was twice our Funded Debt. 



My hero's parents patronised the function. 
Proud of their child as they that rear on 
Mellin. 

They'd journeyed overnight from Sidmouth 
Junction, 
Father and mother and fair sister Helen; 

Haling Aunt Ermyntrude without compunction 
From her herbaceous hermitage at Welwyn; 

Heedless that bonnet, parasol and bodice ill 

Became the day, so she would add a codicil. 



They had seen 'Upper Chapel'; yawned through 

* Speeches'; 

Marvelled that tenements of lath and plaster 

Should house both him that learns and him that 

teaches; 

Opined the drainage pregnant with disaster; 



yack ; One of Us 75 

Tried the stout ash-plants, bane of slacksters' 

breeches; 
Lunched; and heard 'Absence' called by the 

Headmaster: 
And ever waxed more enthusiastic, 
Save Aunt, whose ankles ached 'neath their 

elastic. 



And now they strolled about the tented field 
Where floods arise and Waterloo was won, 
Where the vast elms and storied oak-trees yield 

A leafy solace 'gainst the summer's sun: 
There the spun leather tricked the willow's 
shield. 
Or felled the stumps of such as stole the run. 
Poor Ermyntrude, what cared you for their 

cricket, 
Who knew not which was umpire, which was 
wicket! 



He left his 'people,' not without direction 
To seek his rooms so soon the clock struck four; 

And hied him home to don the quaint confection 
Reserved for us who wield the expert oar. 

The choicest cates of 'Little Brown's' selection 
His boys-maid brought, and strawberries galore : 

So Brown's gave 'tick,' what mattered it that no 
land's 

Messes were sweet as ready-money Rowland's.'' 



i6 yack .• One of Us 

When to his taste the tender toast was made, 

Fruits, jams and sandwiches set out together; 
He doffed his * tails,' his shirt aside he laid, 
With waistcoat, tie, and boots of patent 
leather; 
In stripe and silk his upper man arrayed, 

In whitest duck and azure socks, his nether; 
Reached for the regal 'straw' that named his 

Boat . . . 
And found, 'twixt band and brim, — the nest- 
ling note! 



Perfumed, it was: not such as schoolboys send. 
Begging the loan of Boothby book or Gould; 

Mauve was the paper, feminine the trend 
Of every line across its surface ruled ; 

Secret the words, and few, discreetly penned 
By fingers in the art of intrigue schooled. 

*Meet me to-night,' was all that he might trace, 

* Eleven-thirty, at the usual place.' 



Unsigned, undated, meant for him alone 
Who guessed the brain that schemed, the hand 
that wrought. 

Straight at those words, imagination, flown 
Beyond the vast refection he had bought. 

Pictured the coming joys — not all unknown. 



yack ; One of Us 17 

Tea-things and toast and sandwiches were 
naught : 
He dwelt, 'midst retrospect and expectation, 
In the rose-glamour of an assignation. 



As in a dream, he entertained his guests; 

His thoughts were far from each parental 
platitude. 
Scarcely he hearkened to his aunt's behests; 

Hardly observed his sister's doting attitude: 
Yet duly sniggered at ancestral jests; 

Nor quite forgot him of the filial gratitude 
That tends obedient cheek to Mater's lip, 
Lest Pater should withhold the needed tip. 



As in a dream he rowed that afternoon; 

Nor recked that 'stroke' was short, and 
* seven' late: 
Such trifles do not mar a Fourth of June, 

Though scarce conducive to a Ladies' Plate. 
We paddled fast and came to Boveney soon; 

Coaxed through the lock each deftly-balanced 
eight; 
And so arrived where waited feast and flunkey, 
Hard by the sylvan solitudes of * Monkey.' 



There, at King's Eyot — where on half-holidays, 
In midsummer when lock-up goes at nine. 



i8 yack ; One of Us 

Whiff-gigs and 'riggers pack the waterways — 
We moored our craft, and sat us down to dine. 

Came aspics, trifles, lobster-mayonnaise; 

Foamed the pale cup, the far-from-vintage 
wine; 

Till, from 'Defiance' even unto 'Ark,' 

Each feared the moment when he must embark. 



Red sunset as we turned our prows down-stream, 
To lilt of Boating-Song and plash of blade : 

'Neath Athens' walls we saw the ripples gleam; 
'Sandbanks' slid by us, ghostlike in the shade: 

But when we heard the herald rocket scream, 
Many a stalwart rower grew afraid — 

For he who looks too fondly on the cup, 

Fears in the rocking thwart to raise him up. 



The fireworks flashed ; the frail boats drifted past. 
Their upright oarsmen black against the glow; 

And some there were that reeled, and one that 
cast 
Himself upon the cooling waves below. 

The Fourth was over; Windsorwards at last 
Each proud progenitor was free to go. 

Ere midnight boomed from Upper Chapel Tower, 

Eton had been in bed a good half-hour. 



yack .- One of Us ig 

The new moon rises zenithwards, and wanes. 

The watchman puffs his soUtary shag. 
No lights illume *me tutor's' blinded panes; 

Sweet slumber falls on boys-maid, blood, and 
fag. 
Here, in the garden where the rambler reigns 

And purple curl the petals of the flag, 
Modern Eurydice to modern Orpheus, 
One calls her leman from the arms of Morpheus. 



'Tis not, by far, the first of their offending; 

No more for them Life holds its best illusion. 
Too well they know the hand-clasp, and the 
blending 

Of Hps that lock in amatory fusion ! 
Yet little reck that courtship nears its ending; 

Little they guess their amoret's conclusion. 
Or dream another morning's cock-a-doodling 
Shall sound a sudden knell to their canoodling. 

Dianthus marks their footsteps, and the rose 
Sheds subtle fragrance round them every- 
where. 

The dew of night is on the grass, the toes 
Of satin shoes are drenched beyond repair; 

As Amy, conscious of well-powdered nose. 
And heedful to the dressing of her hair, 

Gives lips and hands and eyes and cheeks and 
tresses, 

Soberly, to her suitor's hot caresses. 



20 yack .• One of Us 

What foolish vows they pledge, half-sighed, half- 
spoken. 

To the soft soughing of the boughs above. 
Her tones to him are melody, and broken 

His own voice as he tells her of his love; 
Begging for some, if but a trifling, token — 

The lock he kisses, or the dangled glove; 
Deeming each Cytherean rite combined 
In Fownes' productions and the curls of Hinde. 



Hush! what was that? A footfall on the grass? 

Or but the wind? Or that accursed collie? 
They hold their breath, in hope the Thing may 
pass: 

Yet ever closer, from behind yon holly, 
Grim Tragedy steals stealthily on Farce : 

And now pale Fear usurps the throne of Folly: 
For lo! the awful moon reveals the charmer's 
Brother in dressing-gown and pink pyjamas! 



Adown the path they hear his slippered pad. 

His candle flares this side the tennis-net. 
Blinking a trifle, for his sight is bad. 

He peers and probes amidst the shadows jet. 
*Fly, dearest, fly!' implores the trembling lad: 

'It's not too late, he hasn't seen us yet.' 
Fly swift thyself, my hero lion-hearted — 
Long since, thine artful Amy has departed ! 



yack .• One of Us 21 

That instant seals Jack's fate; the traitor candle 
Unmasks his outline to the searching sage. 

Full on the head that Amy loves to dandle, 
Bursts the tornado of her brother's rage ; 

Witless that he who cowers may light a scandal 
To sweep him headlong from his tutelage, 

He speaks, his voice to wrathy whispers sunk: 

*What means this? Are you dreaming, boy, or 
drunk?' 



*Come to my study.' 'Now, sir, if you can, 
Elucidate this midnight meditation. 

You couldn't sleep? Indeed! A novel plan — 
To cure insomnia by ambulation! 

What are you hiding there? A lady's fan! 
Methinks I scent a different explanation — 

A woman! Not a word, sir! ! To your bed! ! ! 

This matter shall be laid before the Head.' 



Gods! what a night! The riven senses reeling 
Poised on dark chasms of eternal shame ; 

With bloodshot eyeballs glued upon the ceiling. 
With tortured head one livid searing flame. 

He visioned morning's scrutiny revealing 
That fatal fan inscribed with Amy's name. 

Sleep came not nigh him, as he tossed and sor- 
rowed 

Nor knew the flirting feathers were but borrowed. 



22 yack .• One of Us 

But, for each shadow-terror of the night, 
The wan day held a tenfold direr pang. 

His inmost fibres sickened with affright. 

Passed early school; passed breakfast; chapel's 
clang 

Summoned to service. Still nor note nor sight 
Of her that fled. Suspense's dubious fang 

Bit to the bone. On lagging feet and leaded, 

Red Gaffney brought the mandate that he 
dreaded. 



Gowned in full state, the deep-mouthed doctor 
sat 
To weigh the sins of scholar fools and flan- 
nelled ; 
Awesome in aspect, sacerdotal, fat; 

His brows were pent, his forehead deeply 
channelled. 
Hopeless, Jack twirled the unconsoling hat; 

Straight was the dual tribunal empanelled; 
Straight from his tutor's lips, reluctant, feU — 
All, save the n^me the culprit would not tell. 



Deaf to their queries, dumb to every wish, 
No word escaped the barrier of his teeth. 

Vain were their menaces of 'sack' and 'swish,' 
Vain was the kindly glance, the threat beneath. 

Mute as a man that stalks a wary fish, 



yack .• One of Us 23 

Mute as a mourner fingering the wreath, 
He would not name, though many the incite- 
ments, 
The secret paramour of their indictments. 



Right here — an I but chose to disregard 
The tender Hen that bindeth verse to verity — 

Should Amy burst, wide eyes with tears be- 
starred, 
Upon that monkish council-room's austerity. 

* Mine was the fault — not his ! However 
hard. 
Be mine the punishment for his temerity/ 

Thus should she clamour, virginal, distraught. 

Alas ! that she did nothing of the sort. 



One word from her had turned the tipping 
scale ; 
She spake it not, but left him in the lurch. 
And he, too nobly-proud to rend the veil. 

Too foolish-fond the damsel to besmirch^ 
Guarded his silence, left untold the tale 
That soon had hurled his tutor from his 
perch : 
While they, whose hearts were high, whose lore 

was deep. 
Prated of * ravening wolves amidst their sheep.' 



24 yack .• One of Us 

They talked of high Tradition, and the goal 
Of youth whose torches mock Temptation's 
wind; 

Of Evil, working secret as the mole; 

Of fell Corruption, hooded, hidden, blind. 

* Masters, not men' they were; so pure of soul, 
Naught but the worst conclusion crossed 
their mind. 

His unvoiced vices filled them with revulsion. 

The sentence was 'Immediate expulsion.' 



Lopped at one sweep of that relentless axe, 
Drops the bright blossom of a lad's career. 

As other Jills have ruined other Jacks, 
As Lancelot was damned for Guinevere, 

Once more a noble knight shall pay the tax 
Levied on them that hold the sex too dear. 

He must away; the carefully-worded wire 

Heralds his advent, warns his anxious sire. 



It is the end. The locomotive crawls 

Round the curved arch that spans the marshy 
mead. 

He looks his last on Upper Chapel's walls, 
The footer-fields, the fives-courts of his need. 

Eton, farewell! your purblind seneschals 

Have done their worst. His future is decreed ; 

And be it fair, or fouled for evermore — 

You bound the millstone on him, Doctor Gore! 



CANTO III 



Peggy! my Pegasus that fears no danger — 
Not e'en the 'Daily Mail's' Cassandrine 
saUies — 

Take one last feed from thy domestic manger, 
Or e'er we plane across those jocund valleys 

Where prison waits the enterprising stranger. 
We must to Deutschland, Deutschland ilber 
alles: 

Black is the bread her conscript hosts are fed on, 

Black shall her eagles loom at Armageddon. 



We must set hoof on yon forbidden loam 
Where equine steak the Teuton maw assuages ; 

Leaving nor watch nor ward about our home, 
Save Machiavellian Maxwell, and the sages 

Who read the runes beneath that Golden Dome 
Where Hildebrand cavorts and Harold rages; 

That Dome above whose gates is written clear: 

'All soap abandon, ye who enter here!' 

25 



26 yack ; One of Us 

These shall suffice. Come forth ! Be not afraid ! 

Marconied from Newfoundland to Formosa, 
Northcliffe the Silent watches. He who stayed 

The dragon in mid-pounce upon the grocer, 
And brought the miller back his germ that 
strayed , 

Brooks not that alien army-corps draw closer; 
Mailed fists are naught, and naught a Kaiser's 

arms worth, 
Against the line-o-typists of our Harmsworth. 



Our hero dwells in exile for a space: 

Answer, good beast, to spur and tightened 
rein! 

Fly at the utmost speed of pinioned pace 
To that rich city, Frankfurt-on-the-Maine, 

Whither stern parents sent him in disgrace. 
For I would carol of my boy again . . . 

Youth calls to youth, till fractured hearts grow 
fickle : 

Fair was the Fraulein Elsa Pumpernickel. 



She was as meek a flower of maidenhood 
As ever blew the froth from Loezvenhraeu; 

Azure her eyes as Veilchen from the w^ood. 
Her plaited coils as gold without alloy. 

Her father's house in Sachsenhausen stood, 



yack / One of Us 2j 

And there,where cider streams for burghers ' joy, 
She dwelt apart from Rosenveldts and Rosen- 
thal, 
Far from the lordly gateways of the Mosenthals. 



A Backfisch, she, of artifice bereft; 

And well content on simple fare to dine. 
To cook, to sweep, to sew, her hands were deft; 

To bring the slippers, or to pour the wine, 
For father late-returning from Geschaeft. 

The Jeden-Dienstag-Abend- Tanzverein, 
Her chiefest pleasure; there she hopped and 

hoped. 
Some early day would see her gut-verlobt. 



It fell upon a time when early spring 

Lit the rare primrose starwise in the grass, 

That the Staats-Eisenbahn was issuing 
Excursion-tickets to the Saalburg pass — 

For so bade Wilhelm, Emperor and King: 
And thither fared maid Elsa's dancing-class, 

To taste, amidst those haunts of ancient saga. 

The mountain air, the sunshine, and the Lager. 



Throughout the dreary winter they had stud- 
ied — 
Julius and Hermann, Heinrich, Kurt and 
Franz — 



28 yack .• One of Us 

The schooled deportment of the princely- 
blooded, 
The Austrian waltz, the Rhineland's swifter 
dance: 

And now that fares were cheap and oak-trees 
budded, 
For Hedwig's charms afire, or Greta's glance, 

They had subscribed to mark the parting 
lesson 

By a day's outing and an Abendessen. 



Ach, aber, ach! Across the Taunus hills 

Cold blew the winds, till Fritz and Freda 
shivered : 

There were no violets, no daffodils; 

Bare to the breeze the leafless branches 
quivered ; 

And muslin blouses warded not the chills 
From which a winter's serges had delivered. 

Couple by couple, soon they wandered down 

To friendly shelter at the 'Golden Crown.' 



Musik was there, and merriment enow; 

Sprang the stout Kellner, bearing from afar 
Warm solaces for frozen Mann and Frau: 

Uprose the reek of laid-aside cigar, 
As Kurt or Heinrich, with a tutored bow. 

Besought Feinslieb from somnolent mamma; 



yack .• One of Us 2g 

To dance till hair grew limp and paws were 

sticky, 
And fond heart panted *neath bepatterned 

dicky. 



It was a scene essentially Teutonic. 

The Rheinzvein flowed, the Muenchener foamed 
on high; 
Die Wacht am Rhein resounded philharmonic; 

To raftered roof outrang Die Lorelei. 
Broad-bosomed Mddchen, golden-tressed, ironic, 

Revelled in ardent swains' idolatry: 
They leapt and laughed and bandied blithesome 

jest — 
Maid Elsa gallivanted with the best. 



Stay! who are these, attired as caravanners, 
That sit aloof to burn an aliene flake? 

Weird is their hose, yet weirder are their 
manners! 
This is the breed of Frobisher and Drake, 

Braving the flaunt of Kaiserlichen banners. 
Far from their native land, their native steak, 

They dare the Gasthaus of a Taunus hamlet, 

In British knickers and with British damnlet. 



Watch how the fluttered Frduleiuy beer-imbibing. 
Giggle together, murmuring each to each! 



JO y^ck .- One of Us 

Hear how their nervous swains, uncouthly 
gibing, 
Mock at thick boots and Anglo-Saxon speech! 
Observe yon mother's busy hands inscribing, 

That Paulchen may be clad in English breech! 
But, ah, note well the Pumpernickel's blushes 
When 'gainst those boots her whirling skirt- 
hem brushes! 



'Tis He, the silent suitor of the 'Palms,' 

For whom long since her simple soul has pined ; 
He who has roused to maidenly alarms 

Her swelling breast wherein he dwells en- 
shrined ; 
Who oft has faced the dullest night of Brahms, 

To feast his gaze on her the while she dined. 
He dares approach. The hectic pulses shame 

her. 
With halting words and few, he's here to claim 
her. 



Blind is mamma, and gay the waltz of Lincke: 
Light on his homespun rests her mittened 
hand; 
Down the smooth floor they glide ; each deutscher 
drinker 
Halts in mid-gulp to watch that saraband. 
Let Heinrich rave, let liebes Fritzchen think her 



yack ; One of Us 31 

Faithless and traitress to the Fatherland: 
Little she recks, to whom his every feature 
Betrays the conquering Uebermensch of 
Nietzsche. 



Sways her full form safe-cradled in the crook 
Of that embrace, each movement a caress. 

Stifled and stiff their speech, but every look 
Reflects the thoughts their tones so ill express; 

The Paphian hath small need of Berlitz book, 
When eye meets eye in melting tenderness 

And Inexperience steeleth to endure 

Linked fingers' innocence of manicure. 



Thus they twain dance the livelong afternoon. 

Now Schinkenbrod appears, and scrambled 
eggs; 
Rollmops is here, and Hackfleisch^ Speck and 
Huhn, 

To fortify each weary dancer's legs. 
Soon shall the violin be dumb; and soon, 

Empty the vastest of the landlord's kegs. 
Hark, 'tis the sacred toast, the final rite! 
* Prosit! es lebe die Gemiithlichkeit!^ 



The hour grows late and chaperones are 
worrying ; 
Waits the long train aquiver, many-carred. 



32 yack .• One of Us 

Stationwards now must man and maid be 

hurrying; 
Sprint, or the punctual portals shall be barred ! 
Here comes the last belated couple scurrying, 
^ Einsteigeriy ' Abfahrt,' cries the pompous 

guard; 
Clangs the loud bell, the wheels revolve; and 

hoarse, 
Shrieks the pent air that checks the Klein- 

bahn's course. 



Down where the pine-tree hugs the crag 
precarious, 
Down where the lone hut perches on the rock. 
Slide the packed carriages. Within, gregarious. 
Here a flowered waistcoat, there a muslin 
frock. 
Huddles the dance-class. Voices rise hilarious; 
Froths at each halting-place the frequent 
Bock. 
But Elsa sits sure-guarded of her mother, 
Clasping one palm in hers. . . . Whose clasps 
the other.? 



Woe for a hero-heart, capricious, plastic, — 
It is the hand that erst to Amy's clung! 

Woe for a hero-mouth, whence no scholastic 
One single phrase in her betrayal wrung, 



yack .• One of Us 33 

Waxing to stranger orbs enthusiastic, 
Murmuring treason in a hostile tongue! 

Woe for the wine of love, surpassing Clay- 
more, — 

Though Amy's lost to Jack . . . remaineth 
Amor! 



To him Mars tends no bays, and none Minerva ; 

Taboo to him, the sword-hilt and the sermon ; 
Who gave his all for Venus, and must serve her 

Whether her altars English be, or German. 
Jealously burn to mark that wooing-fervour, 

Heinrich and Julius, Kurt and Franz and 
Hermann ; 
But the blonde priestess heeds them not, the 

while 
Her mother's snores boom louder, mile on mile. 



Too soon the lights of Frankfurt town appear. 
Specks of blurred fire athwart the cloudy 
pane; 

'Tis time and time to garner scattered gear. 
Slower, and ever slower, jolts the train. 

Worship is over; parting-time is here; 

Mothers must waken, hands unclasp again. 

One British 'Darling,' one Germanic ' Schatz\ . . 

And Jack's alone upon the Bahnhof Platz. 



34 yack ; One of Us 

Alone! and yet no more in isolation, 

No more by dreams of forfeit Blue perplexed : 

Forgot, the stigma of his rustication, 
The wrongs men wrought, injustices that 
vexed ; 

E'en Amy's treachery. The first temptation 
Fadeth before the glamour of the next. 

Lo! with light step and firm, our outlaw passes 

To quaff the amber of unending glasses. 



CANTO IV 



From that amazing night when Elsa durst 
Fondle the scion of a race detested, 

We EngUsh lost our Jack. The tongue he'd 
cursed, 
With Der und Die und Das und Dem infested, 

Was more to him than ours. He slaked his 
thirst 
Where nary a compatriot molested: 

And all our colony bemoaned the jingo 

Whom alien looks had lured to alien lingo. 



Never he danced at * Anglo-Saxon' balls, 
Where Frangipanni vies with Floradora, 

And the three-years-discarded fashion galls 
The powdered backs of England's exiled flora; 

No more within the Cafe Bristol's halls 
His countless cannons petrified the scorer; 

No more he drained our Bowie and our Steinzvein, 

To whom Schloss Venusburg was more than 
Rheinwein. 

35 



36 yack .- One of Us 

He left our lasses clad in point de Whiteley, 
Their feathered neck-wraps and their rusty 
laces; 

To wander in the Palmengarten nightly, 
Courting his Teuton's portlier embraces. 

He learned to click his heels, to bow politely; 
He cultivated foreign airs and graces; 

Until in him Frau Pumpernickel saw 

Each aspect of an ideal son-in-law. 



And Elsa, every fibre subtly stirred, 

To his attentions, flower-like, expanded; 

Pictured herself betrothed; in slumber heard 
The wedding-march of choir-boys sammet- 
banded. 

Each dainty her Herr Englaender preferred, 
Against his frequent visits she commanded; 

Doubting not, Leherwurst and Sauerkraut 

Would help her mightily to be a Braut. 



At Biitschly's Tea-rooms we would see them sip 

The Chokolade or the Eiskaffee, 
While watchful MuttVs Gorgon guardianship 

Was bane to all but glances' interplay. 
Tante! 'twas you who let the sweethearts slip 

Beyond your custody; and gave alway. 
To them that chided you, the old excuse: 
* Die erste Liebe sei dock ja so silss* 



yack .• One of Us 37 

So waxed their intimacy, till betimes 
Methought on Elsa's hand might shine a 
stone 
To change the playful trend of these my rhymes; 
Almost he'd claimed a Haus-Frau for his own, 
And lived and died beneath those genial climes 
Where man still lords it on the marriage- 
throne. 
Saved! in the nick of time! Muse, blare a 

clarion 
For Mrs. Vermont, Susie, Mame, and Marion! 



For Old Man Vermont, yclept Hiram S., 
President of the Vermont Butter Trust, 

Whom Syracuse and Kansas City bless 
Whene'er they smear his product on their 
crust! 

Men know his pound of butter weigheth less 
Than foolish tables think that butter must; 

Yet bow the knee and pardon his duplicity. 

Who knows the weight of magazine-publicity. 



Now we that sing must make our Yankees 
rich — 
Millions on millions pile — on motor, motor. 
They must own Banks, Bonds, Biscuits, Bacon- 
flitch, 
From Patagonia's pampas to Dakota; 



jS yack ; One of Us 

And every girl who emanates from Mich., 
Fla., Col., Wis., Ark., Pa., Va., Cal., Minne- 
sota, 
Waggon Wheel Gap or Little Rock or Dallas, 
Must be as Dian fair, more chaste than Pallas. 



These be the milk-white maidens of romance, 
Their cheeks unkissed — unpowdered as their 
noses, 
For whom brave knights mount horse and shiver 
lance. 
To whom square-shouldered boys bring 
'Beauty' roses; 
These rule alike the palace and the manse. 

As Robert Chambers charmingly discloses: 
Though why these things are, neither he nor I 

know . . . 
Unless the cause of them be father's rhino. 



Muse ! let us not depart from rule nor rote, 
But rather make these heroines the types 

On which Columbia's female readers dote: 
Thus shall we sell beneath those Stars and 
Stripes, 

Whither our puppet soon must catch the boat. 
Lend me, dear nymph, thy very purest pipes! 

For an we give one virgin Vermont stamina, 

Munsey and Scribner will unite in damnin' her. 



yack .• One of Us 39 

'Twas on a gorgeous day in late July, 
The Vermonts tarried by Weisbaden's waters. 

There sat the magnate, with the 'eagle' eye, — 
Vide friend Hearst's and Pulitzer's reporters — 

Flanked by his splendid spouse, serene and spry; 
Crowned with his triple aureole of daughters. 

Mommer dreamed peerages; and Popper, pelf; 

Each of the damsels dreamed about herself. 



The sun-motes danced on either freckled cheek 
Of brown-tressed Susie, slender, seventeen; 

Gilded the corn of Mamie's locks, the sleek 
Imperious jet of Marion's: such a sheen 

Had Helen's hair when all the world was Greek. 
An heiress each — and doubly thus a queen — 

They stood, those keen-eyed huntresses, at 
gaze, 

When chanced my Jack adown the gravelled 
ways. 



Perfect his pose was, faultless his attire, 
God-like the poise of each athletic limb; 

He walked as one aloof from Schmidt and Meyer, 
Booted of buckskin, flannel-trousered, slim. 

And Cupid lit a torch of swift desire 

In those three watchers at the sight of him: 

So that Mame paled, and Marion grew dumb. 

And Susie's lips forgot their chewing-gum. 



40 yack ; One of Us 

When woman craves and plutocrats abet, 
Rivers run dry; the planets change their 
courses ; 

Mountains rush leaping up to Mahomet, 
Heedless of gravitation's lesser forces. 

Before another evening's sun has set, 

(Who knows the depth of feminine resources ?) 

Fettered and shackled to the Vermont group, 

Jack tastes the Kursaal's most expensive soup. 



Poor jilted Elsa, lonely in thy bower. 
Cease to indite pathetic Ansichtskarten, 

Sad with forget-me-not's ccerulean flower. 
In trysting grottoes of the Palmengarten 

Await him not at the appointed hour. 

Er kommt nicht mehr, was hilft das lange 
Warten ? 

He comes no more, that lover rich and regal: 

What are your swan-songs to the screaming eagle ? 



Feinsliehchen writhes in Transatlantic talons, 
He's fed on bortsch and caviar and trout; 

For him 'White Seal' outpours Lethean gallons, 
Bringing oblivion of Backfisch Braut. 

Mame's arms weave spells more potent than 
Maud Allan's; 
Deadly as Lorelei, is Marion's pout; 

Maddens as Nixe^ Susie, lithe and lissom. 

Whose lips call lads to love but never kiss 'em. 



yack .• One of Us 41 

They'll book his passage at appalling rates, 
They'll cable for his governor's consent; 

Thus shall they bear him captive to the States, 
Their bows' reward, their spears' emolument. 

Vain was the hope of Pumpernickel pates, 
Vain was the sweet connivance Auntie lent; 

In Yankee gyves your bridegroom shall be 
hauled off 

To Broadway, Forty-second, and the Waldorf. 



CANTO V 



We'd planned a prologue, Muse and I together, 
Full of the west winds, circling corybantic; 

We'd hoped for calm days, when the curlew's 
feather 
Glinted in sunshine of the wide Atlantic. 

Music, alas! was murdered of foul weather; 
Angry Poseidon drove us almost frantic. 

Poor Muse and I, we made a pretty pair; 

Master and mistress, mad with mal-de-mer. 



Strange, we should girdle earth, without 
duenna — 

Setting our Peckham's priestesses agog — 

From Popocatapetl to Vienna, 
From Hampstead's radiant hills to Putney's 

fog, 
From ports where houris manicure with henna. 

To pubs where Chinks ensoup the hairless dog; 
Yet never breakfast ta'en on floating palaces. 
But swiftly goes to join the churning helices. 

42 



yack ; One of Us 43 

Ah, cruel god, why set us twain afloat 

To be the sport of all the blasts that blow — 

Only to let the pallid poet note 

His pendant garments swinging to-and-fro, 

While rolls and pitches our infernal boat 
Past wonder-isles and coral-capes aglow 

With Star-magnolia, Sinjib-tree and Lotus, 

Whose wafted fragrance mingles with our Zotos ? 



By Neptune racked, foredamned of Mrs. Grundy, 
The leaden skies are shut to our appeals; 

The tide that hurtles through the Bay of 
Fundy 
Sweeps seaward our rejected evening-meals; 

From Table Mount to Ladram Bay and Lundy 
We feed the fish beneath ten thousand keels; 

Discarding White Star lunches, Cunard teas. 

From Ballycotton to the Cyclades. 



For us the Deutschland made no record run, 
Fiercely she dandled her Pindaric freight. 

Her band droned Parsijal from ten till one, 
Then Gdtterddmmerung from two till eight. 

Ah, with what joy we glimpsed the watery sun. 
Where Liberty and Loeb, enthroned, await — 

That none who dwell beneath the spangled 
banner 

Shall rob the Customs of a single tanner ! 



44 y^ck .' One of Us 

Many a he- and many a she-detective 

Ambushed our liner's advent at the docks; 

To dollars deaf, impervious to invective, 

They plunged profaning hands in shirts and 
sox! 

* Death to the wights whose papers are defective! 

'Death to the smugglers of the silver fox! 

* Death to the criminals of Street or Curb ! 
*I am the law you made,* quoth Mr. Loeb. 



He cross-examined every one with vigour, 
Assuring us 'twere better to be frank; 

No Saratoga 'scaped his lynx-like rigour: 
Irish or Dago, furriner and Yank, 

He searched us all; he prodded hair and figure: 
Matron and millionaire before him shrank: 

And some he warned, and some he fined, and 
some 

He sent to Sing-Sing for a month to come. 



Apart, unmoved, behind his Panatela, 

Old Hiram stood, of journalists surrounded : 

No impious fingers groped in his Viyella, 
None probed his wife, his daughters' trunks 
none sounded; 

As lief might one have searched a Rockefeller, 
As lief a Morgan's dressing-case impounded, 

As dared to reek an Inquisition's lust 

Upon the ruler of the Butter Trust. 



yack .• One of Us 45 

There too were Susie, Marion, and Mame, 
With Mrs. Vermont, voluble in mauve; 

And thither their abducted Briton came. 
Hands in his pockets, curious eyes arove. 

They left their grips for menials to claim; 
In reckless haste their Gallic chauffeur drove, 

Till midday saw them safe beneath the aegis 

Of that palatial hostel, the Saint Regis. 



Years since they'd parted with the Vermont 
home, — 

Within whose lordly gates on Sixty-second, 
Tiffany Glass had winked at ancient Rome 

And Nouveau Art to Cinquecento beckoned ; — 
To dwell at ease where vasty bills up-clomb. 

Though they had lost ancestral halls, they 
reckoned 
That *vurry little trouble with the maids' 
Was more than auctioned bronzes and brocades. 



Their rent was but ten thousand dollars yearly. 
The which included telephone and ice; 

Had they a want — they pressed a button merely, 
And floor-clerks satisfied it in a trice. 

What if their entertaining cost them dearly? — 
The maitre-d' hotel alone was worth the price, 

Lord of the waiter-throng that whirled on 
booby toes 

Before the fury of his * Vieni subito*s. 



46 yack .• One of Us 

Conscious his women had no household cares, 
Would Hiram sally early from his flat 

To do great battle with the Bulls and Bears 
For margarines and cotton oils and fat: 

The while they ruffled it on Sherry's stairs, 
Or bought at Lichtenstein's the stunning hat; 

Nor minded Envy's tongue nor Hatred's mutter, 

So long as men demanded bread — and butter. 



Whate'er the smartest did, that also they did; 

Their steam yacht queened it on the Hudson's 
stream. 
Their Fiats down Fifth Avenue paraded. 

Their diamonds set the Opera House agleam. 
Such was their wealth that they had escaladed 

Those heights where Potted Armour reigns 
supreme. 
To mingle unabashed with Corey, Kessler, 
Jack Johnson, Astorbilt, and Marie Dressier. 



And everyone in that exclusive set 

Gave the glad hand of welcome to our Jack ; 
They found his lineage was in Debrett, 

And made him free of club and poker-pack: 
Till dinner-dances gat him to forget 

The last least recollection of the * sack,' 
Till Frankfurt days and golden Elsa's smile 
Were one with Eton Amy's traitress guile. 



yack .• One of Us 4^ 

They told him: though Chicago might be 
'sUcker/ 
*Noo York* undoubtedly was 'Little It.' 
They bade the bar-keep hustle with the Hquor; 

They 'set them up' until 'the pikers quit.' 
Where Broadway's aching sky-signs flame and 
flicker, 
None handed him the 'frozen face' nor 
'mitt,' 
Not even the Andromaches and Hectors 
He met at Little Hungary and Rector's. 



But ah ! the gorgeousness of Gotham's daughter, 
Belle upon belle in raptured ranks untold; 

From Fifth and Eighth, and Brooklyn o'er the 
water, 
Each peach alike in measure, mind, and 
mould ; 

Attired alike, alike equipped for slaughter. 
Perfect of posture, introspective, cold! 

Would Heaven, one such damsel sigh for me! 

And he, my Jack, was coveted of three! 



For him, frail Susie's flapperdom was wreathed 
In smiles that might incite a monk to woo; 

For him, the heart of Mame, impassioned, 
seethed 
Despite its ventilating Peek-a-boo; 



48 yack ; One of Us 

To him, the haughty Marion ne'er bequeathed 

That suitor-scaring legacy, *Skidoo/ 
Though Mayflower maidens stoop not to 

caresses, 
They loved the flattery of his addresses. 



Even their father's soul of triple steel 
Melted a trifle to our hero's charm. 

Aye, he that crushed the brokers with his heel 
And cornered B.R.T. without a qualm. 

Would oft invite him to the midday meal ; 
And, heedless of the ticking tape's alarm, 

Would linger talking to him over lunch. 

The cynosure of all the * Swifter Bunch/ 



For though New York's a maelstrom of the 
morals, 
And though her hours fly past at fever 
heat 
As husbands wrestle for expensive laurels 
To strew before their pampered spouses' 
feet; 
At Martin's there are blondes, brunettes, and 
sorrels, 
To tempt the virtue of the most discreet: 
And there, 'midst luxury and lovely ladies, 
Would Hiram tell how stocks had gone to 
Hades. 



yack .• One of Us 49 

Not mine to recapitulate the panic 

Which shook the world that memorable 
November: 
How Lawson leapt on Standard Oil, titanic; 
And Roosevelt fanned the spark of scandal's 
ember; 
How bold men bolted on the Oceanic; 

How, one by one, each frenzied Wall Street 
member. 
As Steels or Unions wilted down to nixes, 
Forsook the Banks of Finance for the Styx's. 



Not ours, Muse mine, to pen for all futurity 
The story of Columbia's disgrace; 

Nor how the baleful bird of Business Purity 
Flapped its fell pinions in a nation's face, 

Plunging in gloom debenture and security; 
How bright Corruption fled, and in her 
place 

The Square Deal festered, noisomest of cankers. 

On Senators and Businessmen and Bankers: 



So that men worshipped not the Great God 

Graft 

The old old god their fathers' fathers knew; 

So that none cooked accounts, none forged the 

draft, 

None robbed the toiler of his moiling's due, 



50 yack ; One of Us 

Nor loosed the gilded murderer as daft, 

Nor lynched one black for ten their grand- 
sires slew; 
So that men found not in the pork of Libby a 
Minutest trace of Lithuanian fibia. 



Not such our themes. Beyond our flimsy string, 
Those Potentates of Copper and of Oil 

Who wrought and fought till that fell bird took 
wing 
For evermore from Transatlantic soil. 

We may not sing the Boom-plant's burgeoning, 
The rising markets and the stocks aboil; 

Nor bow the knee in fealty before 

Tobacco's monarch and his cuspidor. 



Rather must we, along the Gay White Way, 
Far from the clang of greater things be 
tending. 

Far from the dollared battle-line's array: 

For whether shares were soaring or descending, 

Beyond the power of hapless husbands' sway, 
The women went on confidently spending; 

And he who sought to curb his lady's beano, 

Was like to find her hurrying to Reno. 



CANTO VI 



Opera night! Tiaraed, titivated, 

Huge jewels glittering on bepowdered skin, 

The Metropolitan's elect awaited 
The loves and leitmotif of Lohengrin. 

Box upon Box, the Horseshoe scintillated; 
Blended the trial twang of violin 

With scrape of 'cello and the expectant 
hum 

Of all the denizens of Dollardom. 



Right in the midmost of that sacred tier 
Where none but Knickerbocker stock may- 
tread, 

Did Susie, Mame, and Marjon appear; 
And Mrs. Vermont, much bediamonded. 

There gloomed the visage of the financier; 
And there, with briUiantine upon his head. 

Our ex-Etonian twirled his evening gloves. 

Proud of cream waistcoat, proud of triple 
loves. 

51 



52 yack .• One of Us 

Wandered his gaze from Marion's lustrous 
nape 
To Mame's smooth arms upon the velvet 
ledge, 
To winsome curves of flapper Susie's shape. 

Ever his right hand sought the collar's edge, 
White-walled, tremendous, whence the fash- 
ioned tape 
Of tie's perfection shot its waisted wedge. 
Tapped the conductor; tinkled prompter's bell; 
And darkness shrouded our voluptuous swell. 



Masterful through the darkling house, and 
mystic, 
Thrilled the first whisper of those scarlet 
chords 
Golden with wedding-bells' pervading distich. 
Seared with the sable flame of Treason's 
swords. 
Alas ! was ever Dives altruistic ? 

Murmur of voices and the clink of gauds 
Ruined that overture; and scarcely slacked 
When rose the curtain on the opening act. 



For who would heed an Elsa von Brabant, 
When Mrs. Lydig had her emeralds on? 

Who would not turn from Teuton basso's rant 
To where the panoplies of Paquin shone.? 



yack ; One of Us 53 

Shall not the Leiter rubies more enchant 
Than some casqued knight that serenades a 

swan ? 
Though clapped each song, the entracte was the 

cause 
Of even more-tumultuous applause. 



Then might a man, released from music's thralls, 
Mark, and remember well, that blazing mass 

Which filled the boxes and o'erflowed the stalls. 
Then might the dudes on instant errand 
pass. 

To pay the hurried round of friendly calls 
Or quaff the dry Martini's fearsome glass. 

T'was then almighty Jove sent Prudence Swift 

To cut a hero's heart once more adrift! 



Prudence — the new-wed wife of that dread 
man 
Swift, of the * Swift and Swanker Dry-Goods 
Store,' 
(Whose catalogs the anxious drapers scan. 

From Pensacola to Seattle's shore 
Cursing the scheme of his mail-order plan 
Which brings New York to San Francisco's 
door) ; 
Swift, by whose founts the typist-girls decree 
Their Corydons must wait till they are free. 



S4 yack ; One of Us 

Gods! how she looked that night! Each purple 
tress 

Did but enhance the white bright brow of her; 
The sheen and shimmer of unearthhness 

Haloed about her; all Virginia's burr 
Fell from her uncurled lips, as the caress 

Of Southland's breeze 'midst balsam pines 
astir: 
She was a slender and a tiny thing 
To set youth's passion-flower a-blossoming. 



But all Jack's blood to new-born knowledge 
leapt, 
Before the kindling of her countenance. 
Through vein and vein a tingling tremor crept. 
To catch the glow from those wide orbs 
askance 
Wherein the fires of feeling never slept. 

Of little worth seemed Mame's or Susie's 
glance. 
Or Marion's virgin ice, if one might rest 
His love-tired head upon that blue-veined 
breast. 



So sweet the word, so small the hand she gave, 
So nebulous the haze of her alluring, 

That strange mad dreams from ivory gates out- 
drave; 
And, strong beyond the power of his enduring, 



yack .• One of Us ss 

Surged the full-risen tide of passion's wave, 
Bursting its bonds and boyhood's long 

immuring. 
It was as though a choir of seraphim 
Had pealed a trumpet-blast, and deafened 

him! 



There are red-letter evenings in our lives, 
When the pent soul outleaps its prison-den; 

And shame it is, that mistresses and wives 
Should be so deadly keen of acumen 

That never lover, no, nor spouse contrives 
To cloak such instants from their piercing 
ken! 

As from afar the vulture spies the carrion, 

So looked for trouble Susie, Mame, and 
Marion. 



Smiling, the temptress passed; but as the Yid 
Knows well the slump-sign ere the slump 
convulses. 

Beneath that masking of aloofness hid, 
They sensed the quivers of his secret pulses. 

Through mannered shield their bladed instinct 
slid, 
To where the inmost core of man demulces: 

And when the curtain finally descended. 

To certain fear each raised suspicion tended. 



S6 yack .- One of Us 

Nervous were they that supper had been mooted ; 

Nervous were they to note how Prudence 
bowed, 
What time the myriad motor-sirens tooted 

And footmen's voices thundered long and loud. 
Deep in their brains conviction sank and rooted, 

When as she joined them in the hatted crowd 
That throngs, as thick as sea-birds on the 

Skerries, 
Beneath the blazing chandeliers at Sherry's. 



For who was Prudence Swift, that Jack should 
seek her 
While all men saw them stand neglected by? 
Was any tress of hers than Marion's sleeker. 

Was she as Mame demure, as Susie spry. 
That he should pledge her in Veuve Clicquot's 
beaker? 
But when they saw the look, half-glad, half- 
shy. 
That greeted him whom each desired as mate — 
Fear and Suspicion turned to Wrath and Hate. 



They knew! No need to watch his glances 
wander 
To that near table where the hussy preened! 
Conscious of nerves on fire, of heart grown 
fonder. 
Their jealous souls to equal envy greened. 



yack .• One of Us S7 

No more, they vowed, should Vermont wealth^s 

Golconda 
Be poured for her, whose treachery they 

weened 
Than witch's, ghoul's, or body-snatcher's, 

ranker; 
No more, vowed each, she'd deal with * Swift 

and Swanker.' 



They left the lordly terrapin untasted. 

They left the lone Lynnhavens on the shell; 

The canvas-back with oranges they wasted. 
The planked shad held them not. Ere worse 
befell. 

With one accord they girded up and hasted 
Back to the fortalice of their hotel: 

To hide their shame, their fury and their sor- 
row; 

And plot retaliation for the morrow. 



There is a limit set for all our Odysseys, 

There are some portals never man may dare. 
I witnessed not that council of the goddesses. 
Those half-bared limbs, that loosed and 
rippling hair. 
Those bright breasts freed from camisoles and 
bodices : 
Nor heard the awful words they uttered there, 



58 jfack ; One of Us 

As, 'midst their combs, their unguents and their 

creams, 
They hatched the plot that ended boyhood's 

dreams. 



'Tis hard to leave a love-lorn hero sleeping, 
Harder to leave a heroine unkissed; 

To see Romance 'twixt rosy petals peeping. 
Only to know the boy-god's shaft has missed. 

Yet Cupid shall be sweeter for the keeping. 
Nor Vermont's victories for aye persist: 

Though their arts strengthen now and hers 
diminish. 

He still shall come to Prudence at the finish. 



CANTO VII 



There is a languorous land of stars and spices; 

Southward it lies, where warm the Gulf- 
stream's wave is 
And winter-girls sit sipping summer-ices; 

There trills the cat-bird alway, and the mavis, 
On gateways scrolled with crumbled Spain's 
devices ; — 

A land well-loved of Richard Harding Davis. 
Thither they haled my Jack, that goddess-crew, 
To purge his fancy of the guileful Prue. 



Scarce had they brooked a second Sol's uprising, 
Scarce had they recked of suitable attire. 

'Twas not the hour for attitudinising; 

With twice the hustle of their hustling sire 

They scanned the Seaboard Air Line's adver- 
tising : 
And straightway, to its most befoldered flier, 

The word went forth to hitch their private car; 

Saint Augustine, its destination, Fla. 

59 



6o jfack ; One of Us 

All through the night the pannelled Pullman 
sped. 

A banded flame along the ice-bound sleepers; 
Past Baltimore, and Washington abed, 

It whirled the wakeful captive and his keep- 
ers: 
Till morn revealed a nearer Phoebus, red 

On leafless branches of Virginia's creepers; 
And Mrs. Vermont, adipose, imperial. 
Summoned her progeny to shredded cereal. 



Never I saw the early Postum drunk 

By neater maids, in my most travelled days. 

Dew-fresh they came. Not theirs the public 
bunk; 
Not theirs the ordeal of the drummer's 
gaze. 

The warden darkie chanting 'Check yer trunk' 
Adown the stuffiness of curtained ways; 

They had not let the Lisle-thread leaping go 

To wake the stranger snoring far below. 



But slumbered, undisturbed, on sheets of 
lawn. 
In nighties wrought with gossamer insertion; 
Till clink of teacup heralded the dawn, 
And Gallic slaves perfumed for their immer- 
sion 



yack .• One of Us 6i 

The silver bath. For them, paid hands had 

drawn 
The corset-tapes of paupers' own exertion; 
Linked up the mazy fastenings 'twixt their 

shoulders, 
And sent them forth to gladden all beholders. 



Divine, they were! yet neither Susie's chatter, 
Nor Mame's neck peeping from the collar's 
lace. 
Nor Marion's marble brow, had power to 
scatter 
The doleful clouds that hid one mortal's 
face. 
Wordless sat Jack throughout the breakfast 
clatter; 
Watching, in dumb distress, the landscape 
race 
Athwart the windows — swampland, wild, and 

wood, 
That sundered him from riper womanhood. 



Sadly he sought the smoking-car's seclusion. 
But they, not unaware how soon Time 
heals 
Such baby-hearts of immature contusion, 
Made glad with music of the flying 
wheels. 



62 yack .• One of Us 



Rejoiced to guess their enemy's confusion; 
Smiled through the railroad's tinned and 

tasteless meals; 
Laughed, when at length they sallied from their 

dimitied 
Staterooms and waved adios to the Limited. 



The moon hung rounded in the velvet sky, 
Ensilvering Fort Marion's crouching towers; 

Flashed in the canebrake many a gaudy fly; 
Wafted the night-wind scents of southern 
flowers : 

But no joy glimmered in the captive's eye. 
His thoughts were far, so far from maiden 
bowers 

He could not frame the customary paean 

Anent the palm-courts of the * Ponce de Leon.' 



In vain the trio strove, with honeyed speeches. 
With bubbly gold of gigglewater's chill. 

To light his gloom; futilely from the beaches 
Bade bring the bluest blue-fish to the 

Their prisoner was not pacified with peaches; 
Not though they added to the tempting 
bill 
Most luscious squablets sautes a la Maryland, 
Would he admit their Florida was fairyland. 



yack ; One of Us 63 

But who shall stand against Olympian scheming ? 

When latitudes on longitudes dissever 
The dreamer from the dream-face of his 
dreaming, 
What continence is Cupid-proof forever? 
Shall past loves hold, when present space is 
teeming 
With shapes as kind, as beauteous, as 
clever ? 
Not while our Tristrams, Lancelots, Endymions, 
Descend inconstant from inconstant Simians! 



Poor Prudence, out-manoeuvred, ambuscaded! 

A few short weeks beneath those halcyon 
palms — 
And the sharp recollection of you faded! 

The Everglades, the Alligator-farms, 
Low converse on verandahs balustraded. 

Gave victory once more to Vermont arms; 
The Ocklawaha's waves and Silver Spring 
Were weighty allies for that triumphing. 



He was so idle, Susie so delightful; 

You were so distant, she so very near! 
Jack was a child, Prue ! Was it less than right- 
ful 
That he shouid yearn, and yet withhold in 
fear, 



64 yack ; One of Us 

To kiss that flapper-mouth so sweetly- 
spiteful ? 
Do not be angry if he held her dear; 
Forbear to chide him, if he felt the same 
Desire for Marion and adjacent Mame! 



And if the pure soul of a Gotham maiden 
Knew no revulsion when she 'gan discover 

How touch of slender finger-tips and braiden 
Pigtail have spells to spur a laggard lover — 

Blame not my Susie! blame the perfume- 
laden 
Breeze of the South-sea ! blame the sun above 
her! 

For Mame and Marion, if more discreet. 

Melted no little in that kindly heat. 



Now whether Susie kissed, or merely trifled; 

If Marion was maidenly, or fast; 
Whether blonde Mamie satisfied, or stifled 
Her fevered hopes; if their adored one 
passed 
Out of their lives, unconquering ; or rifled 
The untouched treasures of six lips at 
last; 
Belong not here. Those transports, faint or 

fiery. 
Are they not written in each Vermont diary? 



yack .- One of Us 65 

But / am done with love, and love's dull 
dallying — 

I, who erst deemed the Paphian almighty! 
Soul-sickened of the nagging nymphlets rallying 

Around the dreary groves of Aphrodite, 
Of Amaryllis's embraces tallying 

With cuddles culled from Cynthia and Clytie ; 
I will observe, and stony-hearted mock, 
When Lesbians dive from their Leucadian rock. 



Me, neither Fragoletta nor Dolores 

Shall cheat again, nor any Queen of Troy. 

No more I hanker for Faustinian glories; 
Pasiphae may choose another boy. 

Semiramis, and Ephrath's sister houris. 
Shall sup withouten me at the Savoy. 

In one last Parthian couplet, here I damn 

Felise, Alaciel, and Ahinoam. 



Venus, adieu! (at least, for several verses). 

Come, Gods of Wassail and of loathly Lucre ! 
Passion, farewell! I sing of bulging purses. 

Thy bowers abandon for left bowers of euchre. 
Hark to a tale of Fortune's mad reverses, 

Hark to false feet that patter the cachuca! 
Lead on, my grim chameleon. The Joker, 
Unto the inmost Jackpot of thy Poker! 



CANTO VIII 



'TwAS Hiram's sloop The Merry Margarine 
Stood out one evening for the summer seas; 

Out from the harbour of Saint Augustine, 
A bachelor barque, »he bowed her to the breeze. 

High on her poop the magnate stood, serene* 
And, as she glided past the coral quays, 

Opined himself most lucky-born of Adam, 

To be released from daughters and * the Madam.* 



Throughout those shining decks, from wheel 
to spanker, 
No female accent twanged its spoil-sport 
harp: 
Freed for the nonce were Hogg, the ice-king 
banker. 
And Cyrus Hunk, the corporation sharp; 
Prueless, the overlord of * Swift and Swanker ' ; 

Spouse-rid and gay, Elihu Polycarp — 
That slick State-Senator who snoozed abaft, 
Perpending many novelties in graft. 

66 



yack ; One of Us 67 

Joyful as men that lift the lonely latch, 

To each the lengthening leagues meant 
liberty: 

Yet one was there, who sprawled upon the 
hatch, 
A wifeless member of that company, 

Beneath whose Panama's resplendent thatch 
Regret walked hand-in-hand with ecstasy; 

Who had been happier, an the lugger bore 

One Ariadne from the hither shore. 



The tropic moon their orgies saw. Not one 
rose 
To breakfast, from his matutinal sleep. 
Six days they cut the warded waves where 
Monroe's 
Tenets proclaim the eagle's sovereign sweep. 
Low in the dawn-mist, as the seventh sun rose, 

Lay Cuba's shield upon the azure deep. 
Where the sunk Maine defied Time's probing 

gauge, 
They furled their canvases at anchorage. 



Their landing-party stormed the Miramar; 

Drawn cutlery in hand, they sacked its 
store 
Of regal viands; echoed from afar 

The highball's thunder and the Piper's roar. 



68 yack : One of Us 

Cosmopolita and the Paris bar 

Yielded them treasures of 'White Seal' 
galore : 
The captured agent of the Western Line 
Paid them rich ransom of imported wine. 



Satiate and slaked, the buccaneers meandered. 
Arm linked in arm, adown the lonely Prado. 
Never a flagstaff flaunted Cuban standard; 
None barred their path. From Carcel to 
Vedado 
Nary a black-shawled chica there philandered, 

For mid-siesta claimed each desperado. 
Only they heard the rare cochero's bells, 
And caught the tang of unimagined smells. 



Struck five o'clock. Awoke the drowsy town. 
They hailed them hacks, and joined the 
wheeled parade 
That throngs the sea-front ere the sun goes 
down. 
Dressed in her best — Parisian, unpaid — 
Braving querido*s Caribbean frown. 

Smiled on the strangers many a Cuban maid. 
Pale things they were, most passionate and 

dapper 
Once sloughed the husk of their domestic 
wrapper. 



yack ; One of Us 69 

By six the sudden sun set, scarlet, splendid; 

A fresh gale blew from off the murky bay. 
To the *Pasaje' then their way was wended; 

For dinner called, and brooked of no delay 
Save one — and that the bar-keep iced and 
blended ; 

One golden cocktail, climax of the day, 
Bitter as gall, afire with Gordon gin . . . 
Down it like men ! and let the meal begin ! 



Jamon gallego, thus the menu ran, 

Ostras cubanoSy Pote de lentillas: 
Followed strange fish, most hard to rhyme and 
scan, 

Pargos y Guaguaguanchos y Cabrillas: 
Arroz con polio, Queso parmesan, 

Helados, Fresas, Peras, Manzanillas: 
Nor smoked their ebon Cazadores, till 
Five empty magnums swelled the lengthy bill. 



Then Hiram quoth: *That dinner was a 
dandy. 
Let's make a night of it. To hell with 
bed!' 
'Twas Swift and Hunk abandoned not the 
brandy, 
'Twas Hogg that vowed he'd paint the vil- 
lage red; 



JO yack ; One of Us 

But Polycarp who kept the ice-pail handy. 
Heavens, how reeled my Jack's unseasoned 
head! 

How vague and veiled remain his adumbra- 
tions 

Of their post-prandial perambulations! 



How dimly he remembers, down the years. 
The gardens where mysterious maidens 
trod; 

The streets where sailors jostled muleteers; 
The marble floors; the dancers satin-shod; 

Even that houri, roses at her ears — 
That jovencita of the ardent nod. 

From whom he learnt how hot lips of Habana 

Outmatch the frozen images of Dana. 



Maria? Carmencita? powdered pet. 

With curling lashes eloquent of Seville, 
You are forgot! Yet ne'er shall Jack forget 
The bankrupt ending of that frolic revel; 
Clear-cut for aye, 'gainst memory's sky shall 
fret 
The bluffs that towered up from the green 
board's level. 
And Hogg's grim face, and that wan dawn of 

sorrow 
Breaking behind the ramparts of the Morro. 



yack .• One of Us 7/ 

They'd fled the glare of San Nasidro's quarter, 
The shadow-haunted doorways, and the 
sheen 
Of ruby lamps that pointed Pleasure's daughter. 
They rattled down by shuttered streets and 
mean, 
To where, across the oily harbour-water. 

Gleamed the lit awnings of the Margarine. 
There, having drunk and each made due con- 
fession, 
They cleared the planking for a poker-session. 



The chips were stacked; the ante-moneys 
staked ; 

The Jackpots bloated in their opened pride. 
Straddles were filled, and rattling counters 
raked; 

Sounded the challenge, *See you, or divide.* 
The starshine faded as Aurora waked, 

The ripples plopped and muttered overside; 
And Polycarp, without the faintest blush. 
Raised Hiram forty on a bobtail flush. 



* Forty and forty y then the Butter Lord : 
Said Hogg and Hunk as one, *The woods for 
me': 
Down went the cards of Swift upon the board, 
'Twas time and time for two small pairs to flee : 



J2 yack ; One of Us 

Not so our hero; Lily, Kate and Maud 
Queened in his hand; 'And forty more,' cried 

he. 
'Pass,' quoth the Senator. Ah, monstrous 

Fate 
That let the magnate draw his middle straight! 



Dawn on Cabanas fort broke cool and sweet. 
Still they played on; the rises waxed apace. 
They claimed Whang-Doodles after every 

meet, 
They took four cards what time they held an 

ace. 
Cold, aye and colder, froze the winners' feet; 
Long, aye and longer, stretched each loser's 

face; 
As now the banker, now the legal sharp, 
Were bluffed and bluffed again by Polycarp. 



On Jack alone no kindly fortune smiled: 
He filled no fulls, improved no single pair: 

The deuce of spades his diamond flush defiled; 
His cherished kickers kicked not anywhere. 

On either side he saw his lost 'bones' piled, 
In front of him the chanceless baize was 
bare; 

Alternate straights and kilters were his lot 

Up to the final consolation-pot. 



yack .- One of Us 73 

A traitor ace-flush egged him to his end, 
Five sable clubs, Elihu doled him — pat. 

It was a fitting time that luck should mend; 
For Hunk had raised and Swift had doubled 
that . . . 

Ah, lost two thousand, never his to spend! 
One card, the cautious opener drew; and sat, 

Seeing each raise, while hero. Hunk, and Swift 

Proceeded one another's bets to lift. 



Ah, ye tall tens, infrangible quartet 

That Hogg displayed, unalterably four! 

In the show-down three lordly hands ye met, 
Met but to roll them on the discard's store! 

The slender straight that Cyrus overbet. 

The triple knaves that served their Swift so 
sore. 

And those dark clubs in which a Briton trusted. 

Futile they were — far better had ye busted. 



Rose the new sun upon a scene of woe, 

Glinted on polished cards and amber chips. 

Setting the glass of overnight aglow. 

Loud rang the curses from four Yankee lips. 

But did the stripling grouse.? Judge ye who 
know 
Our English bull-dog in his dying grips. 

Calm-eyed, disdaining subterfuge or boast, 

Jack borrowed fourteen hundred from his host. 



74 yack .• One of Us 

The curtain falls: what boots it to reveal 
The word that flashed along the Anglo's cables 

The rustic messenger, on painted wheel, 
Who found his rabid father in the stables; 

The instant cash which answered his appeal; 
The unfilled promise of his mother's sables; 

The dread recalling wire, 'Thou shalt not tarry 
on 

With Mrs. Vermont, Susie, Mame, or Marion.' 



Reader, of thy compassion, pause and weep! 

Weep for a puppy prodigal, returning, 
Over the bosom of the wine-dark deep, 

To face parental anger justly burning! 
Yet — when thy cards seem fair and bets are 
steep. 

With tutored eyes the danger-point discerning, 
Heed thou the solemn warning of the bard : — 
^Beware of him who draws the single card!* 



CANTO IX 



We who drink deep from that Pierian spring 
Whose well no spUt infinitives pollute, 

Delight in rose- and rue-flower's blossoming, 
In lips entwined and passion's purple 
fruit; 

Yet themes there be whence never bard may 
wring 
The needful lilt, howe'er attuned his flute: 

And here must I, in spite of all I've quaffed, 

Decline to versify the overdraft. 



The Muses wept, the halls of song were 
dumb. 

When Jack returned to face paternal ire. 
Euterpe ceased to ply the plucking thumb; 

Erato paled before that angry sire; 
Clio was mute; Melpomene sat mum; 

Calliope flung down her tingling lyre. 
Bereft of Heliconian aflflatus, 
I leave that scene one hideous hiatus. 



7^ yack : One of Us 

Mayhap 'tis better so: sith nary printer 

Mote set in Caslon-fount or Cheltenham Bold, 

The oaths the old man sware — he was no stinter 
Of Anglo-Saxon curses manifold ; 

For he had gat him motors twain that winter, 
The which had robbed him of much hoarded 
gold 

And David George with itching fingers pressed 

Right heftily upon his landed chest. 



Eftsoons, methinks, by loss of lucre blinded, 
Had he cut off the waster with a shilling — 

As fathers do — as chancely, reader, thine did — 
And so put speedy end to this my trilling: 

Save, in his own son's sin, was he reminded 
Of his lost youth, and that triennial billing 

Which every undergraduate of mettle 

Expected his progenitors to settle. 



Thus he forgave; with well-weighed words 
anent 

The heinous wickedness of them that gamble : 
A sely discourse, plentiful besprent 

With eldy saw, with proverb and preamble; 
Proving how noble roof-trees had been shent 

And vast demesnes left bare to brier and 
bramble. 
Because, forsooth, the heirs of honoured names 
Had set no limit to their * little' games. 



yack .• One of Us 77 

So a full hour the heavy father stormed 

But when he deemed the truant's conscience 
raxed 

And by such eloquences aye reformed, 

To kindlier thoughts and welcoming relaxed. 

The study-fire his homespun coat-tails warmed, 
Parental ardour in his bosom waxed. 

The while he beamed upon his boy; and told 

Of birds and foxes slain, and long putts holed. 



Straightway appeared mamma, and kissed the 
sinner; 

And, though she bade prepare no fatted calf. 
Since she opined her first-born looking thinner, 

Decreed Sanatogen for him to quaff; 
And sent him bedwards shortly after dinner. 

Then spake the beldame to her better half 
Warnings and words of counsel, ending thus: 
*Meseems 'twere better an he stayed with us.' 



The which her lord approved, and so decided: 
And all that night, upon her wakeful bed. 

She conned the damsels Devonshire provided 
In ample numbers for her boy to wed — 

Them that by Shute and Axminster resided, 
And them that Exevale's stately mansions 
bred; 

Wondering if haply marriage in precocity 

Would cure her darling's tendence to velocity. 



7c? yack ; One of Us 

Right many moons amongst the western queans 
Abode my Jack, a prey to each convention; 

Breasting the tea-fight's surge, or at the 
Dean's 
Daring the mid-day meal-time's dull 
distension. 

'Twixt Gertrudes, Constances and Geraldines 
He proved the cause of many a dissension; 

Being forfain to woo with equal fire 

All Atalantas of that festive shire. 



Now sith there ruled, upon that countryside. 
Of marriageable men great scarcitie, 

He was a welcomed caller far and wide 
By every landed dame of high degree; 

And every rival daughtered-matron tried. 
With tennis-party and with picnic tea. 

From Exeter, yea even unto Ottery, 

To draw this gros lot of the marriage-lottery . . 



Yet gat small benefits to pay their trouble. 

Whereat the county did malignly scoff — 
Seeing how fancy-free Jack trod the stubble 

Or set his courser at the on-and-off; 
Or ventured at the bridgeing to redouble. 

Spite the wan curate's deprecating cough ; 
Or smote the topmost phasiant that rocketed; 
And never once his mashie-shots y-socketed. 



yack ; One of Us yg 

Still, though he cleaved to none, it did befall, 
The Ladye Alice pleased him more than most. 

Eke fayre was she, and passing rich withal; 
A hugey dowery was hers to boast. 

Blue eyes she had, to hold a page in thrall; 
And whitest hands, to pass his tea and toast, 

Or pour from Fortune's teeming cornucopia 

The lavish bounty of her philanthropia. 



She was that orphan-heiress of the Grange, 
Last of a flavoured line of cocoa-makers. 

Whose sonless sire, apprised by dreams full 
strange 
Of mausoleums and of undertakers. 

Had bartered twenty trade-marks in exchange 
For twice ten thousand incremented acres — 

Whereon he died in peace, ne sought to vie 

With Messrs Tibbie, Cadbury, or Fry. 



She was not one of those swift damozels 
That have their joy in the unseemly jest — 

Yclept 'the smack and tickle'; froward belles 
That in the apple-pie-bed take much zest; 

Or down ye bannisteres, with ribald yells. 
Delight to glide, right scantilie bedressed: 

Which conduct, spite of Father Vaughan's 
rebukes. 

Men say be practised at my friend the Duke's. 



8o yack ; One of Us 

They twain had played at sweethearts long ago, 
Perched on the giant rhododendron's limb; 

Had plighted baby-troth where king-cups grow, 
Or ever Eton had rejected him, 

Or ever he had been false Amy's beau, 

The storm- tossed child of Aphrodite's whim: 

And now the cherished playmate of Jack's 
youth 

Was like to be his sweetheart in good sooth. 



As yet he loved not; only thought her grace 
And gentleness delightful in comparison 

With thick-boot Dians of the otter-chace. 
Who simpered at the subs of any garrison. 

Grangewards he sauntered often, till his pace 
Was marked no longer by the ban-dog's wari- 
son. 

Which, since the Ladye's lands and theirs did 
touch. 

Gladdened and gratified his mother much. 



Heigh-ho! Amidst those green Devonian hills 
A cunning siren dwelt, most crafty-wise 

To snatch their Jacks away from honest Jills; 
Who, weening well that on his pa's demise 

This Jack would have withal to pay the bills 
Of her desiring, secret did devise. 

With awful arts of gramma rye and malice. 

To wrest from him the unsuspecting Alice. 



yack ; One of Us 8i 

A low-voiced charmer, specious, subtle, svelte; 

Of pretty purring ways she had great store. 
To her in love, God wot, had many knelt; 

And scalps of half the country-side she wore 
Adangle from her patent-leather belt; 

Having no small acquaintance with that lore 
By which too-trustful youngsters are entrapped. 
Aye in her arms, a nasty Pom-dog yapped. 



From early morn to setting of the sun 
Would she make sport of them she had en- 
slaved, 

Saying in public: *Nay! with such an one 
Would I not dance, though mightily he craved ;* 

Or else: 'To him I did but say in fun 

"Moustaches please me not" — and lo! he 
shaved ; ' 

Or: *He was so depressed to go away, 

I had to let him hold my hand to-day.' 



Whenas a maid of this especial shape 

Doth cast on witless wight the gladsome eyne. 

Doth greet with silvery laugh his eldest jape. 
And now appear to yield, and now decline; 

Unless some fairy compass his escape. 
One day she pounceth as the peregrine. 

And hales her prey, before he's thought things 
over. 

To the Lord Warden hostelrie at Dover. 



82 yack ; One of Us 

upon my boy this scheming Circe set 

Such fell and potent spells of amorous power 

As gat him gentle Alice to forget, 

Whom erst he loved : and from that very hour, 

Unending afternoons, or fine or wet. 

He spent at dalliance in her baleful bower; 

Until, from Dumpton's Hills to Dartmoor's 
goyles, 

Men said: 'Behold him, in that wench's toils!* 



Nathless had she attained by wheedling wile, 
To be the chatelaine of those wide lands 

That stretch from Exmouth, mile on deep- 
loamed mile, 
To Newton Poppleford and Sidmouth's sands; 

Had not Jack's mother seen the siren-smile. 
And guessed the greediness of siren-hands: 

Thinking, * I wot not whence the witch's kin come, 

But well I ken her insufficient income.' 



And so contrived, with Machiavellian mutter. 
Recondite, cabalistic ways of those 

That rule our EngUsh wapentakes, to utter 
The word that bans a maiden. She did gloze 

About her till the county almost cut her — 
For she had several stern mammas to foes 

In consequences of injuries their strapping 

Daughters had suffered from the like kid- 
napping. 



yack ; One of Us 83 

But she was wise, that aged watchful dame, 
Nor rowelled too deep the opposition spur; 

Hers was too fine a knowledge of the game, 
To set youth's latent chivalry astir — 

Which oft resulteth in a parent's grame; 
As witness they who, seeking to deter 

Some love-lorn whelp from home-intriguer's 
tricks. 

Have hurled him headlong to the Maids of 
Hicks. 



So thuswise she inquired if it would bore 
Her son to undertake, at her expense, 

A pilgrimage unto that Gare du Nord 

Whither good Yankees flit when they go hence. 

*Fain would she go herself,' quoth she, 'but sore 
Dreaded the journey's inconvenience: 

Yet, an he would not, then must she, for there 

His sister lived, a homesick pensionnaire.^ 



Who would not leave the trickiest of tweeded 
Charmers to languish in her Joyous Gard, 

And fare, with all the billets that he needed. 
Where Maxim's revellers madden, many- 
starred ? 

Not Jack ! He girded up his trunks, and speeded 
Far from the temptress that his parents barred. 

She, to escape her from the social pillory, 

Wedded a ponderous Colonel of Artillery. 



CANTO X 



Paris, my Paris! City of the plain 
Who yet contrive to look exceeding fair; 

Where every winter sees the same old Seine 
Amaze afresh the outraged Commissaire! 

Eleusis of the Wizards who ordain 
Whether discreetly swathed or boldly bare 

Shall march the laughing ladies, frilled and 
frivolly, 

Adown the colonnaded Rue de Rivoli! 



Acropolis of evanescent modes, 

Whence awesome Doeuillet flings his mandate 
far; 
Where, dreadly delphic, CarUer forebodes 

The season's chapeaux to the Redmayne'd 
star; 
And Griinwaldt's silver foxes draw, like lodes, 

The Cincinnati girl and her mamma! 
Temple, whose mannequins see last year's boon- 
Companions on his this year's honeymoon! 

I 84 



yack .• One of Us 8s 

I love the sunshine on thy Place Vendome; 

Thy hatless midinettes, demurely tripping; 
Thy vieux marcheurs, in gauntlets polychrome, 
Their monocles from wrinkled sockets slip- 
ping; 
Thy bourgeoises and thy mondaines and thy 
momes; 
Thy suave attendants, eloquent of tipping; 
Thy BoursierSy with measured tread and 

slow, 
Seeking their matutinal riz-de-veau. 



Still — Thou, whose absinthe helps the lagging 
stanza, 
Whose twelve-franc wine outsparkles that of 
Perth; 
Dearer to me than Bursley-town or Hansa; 
Wife of no nation; Mistress of the earth; 
Ultima Thule of the crazed; Bonanza 
Of every jewel that decks the mouth of 
mirth! — 
Mine, though a worshipper, must be the task 
Of rending from thee thy dissembling mask. 



For thou before the world dost take thy 
stand 

As a vast charnel-house of fleshly sin ; 
Whose shameless inmates dance a saraband 

To fleece the feckless of their facile tin; 



86 yack ; One of Us 

While vice and vitriol walk hand-in-hand, 

And Trilbies flaunt the unprotected skin, 
Where man drops down life's ladder, rung by 

rung, 
And Sascha-Toni catches Filson young. 



Such is thy pose! but we, not undiscerning 
The scant veneer which o'er each deal is 
laid, 

In thee descry the avid merchant, yearning 
For grosser profits and expanding trade. 

Thy goblets fill, thy nights see day returning, 
Thy girls flash past in satins and brocade. . . 

And each fresh victim serves but to enhance 

The vaulted millions of the Banque de France. 



Yea ! we, who know thee from the halls of Ritz 

To where the Neant rears fantastic tapers; 
Who quaff the Chatham's ante-prandial splits 
And curse the lateness of the English papers. 
What time our spouse, the livelong morning, 
flits 
With dwindling purse 'twixt milliners and 
drapers ; 
We, who have supped with Pougy — and 

Polaire, 
(In dim, dead days when she deigned do her 
hair) ; 



yack ; One of Us 87 

We, that have sampled every recreation 

From BuUier's belles to Foyot's sizzHng crepes; 

That greet with understanding cachinnation 
The loves of Mistinguette and Dearly's jape; 

We — if at times we yield to thy temptation — 
Perceive no less, how lash and lock and shape 

And amorous mouth and every naughty way, 

Are attitudes, assumed because they pay. 



Yet are we songsters bound, by mystic rite 
Stricter than any Medic lore or Persian, 

That, soon as at the Gare du Nord alight 
The travelled heroes of our book's excursion. 

We do conduct them through the fluffsome 
night 
Unto the scene of each decreed diversion; 

Without whose powerful aid, our magnum opus 

Becomes a most unsaleable octopus. 



In Paillard's halls the vioHns are thrilling, 
Bortsch's and bisque's uncovered fumes entice; 

Champagne from Jeroboams is distilling 
Its argent spume upon the salted ice; 

Here some red langouste crinkles from the 
grilling. 
There weeps a baby-lambkin's piteous slice; 

Here Claude's own self, our gastronomic Shah, 

Counsels the diners to his costliest plats. 



88 Jack .' One of Us 

The lamps shine soft on silverware and napery; 

Fond couples murmur, laughing as they sip; 
Smooth shoulders glisten, rustles scented 
drapery; 

The peach bloom's velvet brushes velvet lip. 
Reek of Havanas rises, blue and vapoury. 

To gilded ceils where fat-limbed Cupids trip: 
And faintly from the Boulevards one may 

guess 
The newsmen's raucous clamouring, 'La Pressed 



But who is this, in waistcoat of the whitest, 
At whose Lucullian fiat waiters spread 

The damask's gloss ? on whom thy grin politest, 
O monarch of the maitres d'hotel, is shed. 

And who his fere, in Poiret hobble tightest, 
A nodding aigrette on her chi-chid head? 

Alas for boyhood's fickleness, alack! 

The gay Lothario is mine hero Jack. 



Forgot, the maids of nature's own complexion — 
His Alice, and the Siren of the Shire; 

Gone from the purview of his recollection. 
The wordy warnings of his worthy sire ; 

The shapely sharer of his rich refection 
Tinges his fancy with her phallic fire. 

Day after day his weeping sister waits 

His promised visit, at the pension gates. 



yack .• One of Us 8g 

Helen, poor homesick Helen, thy duress 
Must be consoled by fellow pensionnaires. 

Sobs on the bosom of the sous-maitresse; 

Munch the wan gaufrette at the Neuilly fair; 

Solace, with Eve's or Aminte's tenderness, 
The heart that pants for your neglectful 
jrerel 

Small need has he of sisters, who has met 

The fascinating, frivolous Triquette! 



Their looks flash understanding, as they meet 
Across the lifted beaker's clinking brim; 

From feathered turban to attractive feet. 
Her trained perfection is a lure to him; 

Sweet her expressive hands, and doubly sweet 
The crimson of her lithe lips, pouting-prim, 

That scarcely part to poise incarnadine 

Upon the breaking-bubbles of the wine. 



The aureate hour of after-dinner closes 
In wafted spirals of upcurling smoke; 

Dreaming, her glance holds his across the 
roses. 
Too keen, too lull, too melting to provoke. 

Banishing dreams, the vestiaire apposes 
His sombre gibus and her sable cloak; 

Follows the verdant chasseur in her train: 

* Le taxi! et les billets d'avant-sceneT 



go yack ; One of Us 

Along the lighted ways the auto purrs; 

Wrapped in its warden gloom, abide the 
lovers. 
Pink on her breast, uprising from the furs, 

Rest the twin corals large as eggs of plovers: 
And Djerkiss perfumes all that hair of hers. 

Praise to thee, driver, tactfullest of ' shuwers ' ! 
The diplomatic neck thou dost not turn, 
Shall make thy pouch with double pourboire 
burn! 



I too will imitate thee, nor unveil 

The sanctuary of thy limousine : 
For if Triquette be rather kind and frail 

Than wise; and if Chartreuse's cloying green, 
Enmixed with Moet from the frozen pail. 

Quickens my hero's blood; 'twere well to 
screen. 
From vulgar gaze, those lips and hands 

adoring . . . 
Moreover, others' love-affairs wax boring. 



^ Mais sots done sage!' the clinging lips implore; 
The hands unclasp; and jarring grind the 
brakes. 
A deferential porter swings the door. 

'Merely monsieur' — the sphinx-like chauffeur 
takes 



yack .• One of Us gi 

The proffered coin; anew his engines roar; 

Soon in some brasserie his thirst he slakes. 
But they, across the carpet's yielding pile, 
Pass to their loge along the crowded aisle. 



In regal state, observed of stage and stall, 
They sit to watch Arlette d'Orgere display- 
ing 
Her shapely hose; or hear De Sousa call 
The circling pigeons from their fluttered 
straying; 
Sharp on their ears the cadenced couplets 
fall, 
That twit Lepine with Steinheil's shrouded 
slaying; 
Anon, the butt of truly Gallic quips, 
Adown the boards a phantom Sarah trips. 



For them the Apaches ply the mimic strife; 
Uami de Madame emulates Asmodeus ; 
And, keen as razor-edge of surgeon's knife. 

Cuts the appalling persiflage of Claudius. 
(Whereat the gaping Briton's scholar-wife, 

*Tom, dear, come home! the show is simply 
odious.' 
They rise — and lo! or e'er she leaves her 

seat. 
The final chorus blares its tuneful beat.) 



g2 yack .• One of Us 

Compere and Commere make their parting bow; 

The curtain drops upon the packed coulisses. 
The foothghts darkle sudden; and now, 

Attendants claim their petit benefice — 
Paid with good grace, if earned none knoweth 
how. 

Broods over box and parterre, sheeted peace. 
Without, the Place Blanche hums, and pam- 
pered poupees 
Whirl, taxi-borne, to amicable soupers. 



The choicest table at L'Abbaye Theleme, 
Reserved long since, awaits our turtles* 
pleasure. 
There, in the sofaed circle known to fame. 

Coaxed by the strains of Andalusian measure, 
Truite bleu they taste and foie-gras pink as 
flame. 
With the cool mousse-de-jambon' s aspicked 
treasure : 
While Triquette lisps, * Man cheri, c'est atroce, 
Tu saisy nous faisons tous les soirs la noce.' 



Around them swirls the demi-monde, chaotic, 
Feathers and pearls and perfumes, rouge and 
lace: 
Gaby, consoler of the boy despotic — 
An English Guardsman takes the monarch's 
place ; 



yack ; One of Us 93 

Lucy et Jeanne, amitie erotic; 

And tiny Cleo with the flawless face. 
There, whiskered Willy drains the whisky 

peg, 
Accompanied of perfect-moulded Meg. 



Here Pimprinette holds court to her admirers; 

An arch archduke amazes his attache; 
Regina, scantiest of stage attirers. 

Fingers the cord of her embroidered 
sachet; 
A Yankee dollar-lord brings twin Sapphiras; 
A jeune marquis confers St. Germain's 
cachet. 
Loudly they bid newcomers ^ Chape au! 

Chapeau! ' 
And quaffs the ageless glass of sugared ' Drape au* 



Strike, strike the 'cello! Thunder the bas- 
soon! 

Drain to the dregs each ardent alcoholic! 
Launch to the shining dome your flagged bal- 
loon ! 

Let the coiled serpentine whiz parabolic! 
Hark to Pepito's stamping rigadoon, 

The Gitanella's finger-snapping frolic! 
Remember what these cheery evenings cost, 
Nor cavil if the merriment be forced! 



g4 yack ; One of Us 

Faster the music throbs; and soon, uproarious, 
On the cleared floor the revellers twist and 
twirl. 

Crushed are the plumes of Heitz-Boyer the 
glorious, 
With lordly Lentheric's unfastened curl. 

Far from his Faubourg's cynosure censorious, 
Observe the marquis with Regina whirl! 

See with what skill the girls on whom he dotes. 

Relieve that Yankee of his surplus notes! 



But maddest midst the mazy mass gyrating, 
Revolve Triquette and her enamoured Briton; 

Cheeks overflushed and steely eyes dilating. 
Tell half the world how deeply he is smitten; 

While she, not all unversed in men and mating. 
Snuggles to him — the cupboard-loving kit- 
ten. 

Dance on, my Jack, and learn, ere top lip 
thatches. 

The price of mastering a kitten's scratches! 



Fevered and free the close-clung one-step 
sways. 
Unending bottles pour their foaming rain; 
Rises before youth's sight that golden haze 
Which brings the morning headache in its 
train. 



yack .• One of Us qs 

In raptured bliss, le Locataire surveys 

Madame whose sure hands calculate his 
gain; 
Thinking how one more year, or two at most, 
Shall see him leisured on the Azure Coast. 



It IS enough! The dancers' feet grow weary; 
Our tired conductor slants his drooping 
bow. 
Comes now raddition, comes the fruitless 
query. 
See! one by one, the couples cloak and go. 
Hark! Down the stairway, intermittent, 
eerie. 
Across the murk the shrilling whistles blow. 
It is the moment, sportsman, to beware 
The vehicle de luxe, the trebled fare! 



Good-night, Regina! Pimprinette, good-night! 

A poet's blessing on your several slumbers! 
Willy, bonsoir! may no dread dreams affright 

The couch Claudine-Collette no more 
encumbers ! 
Sleep sound, my Meg, and wake refreshed, to 
write 

A new *Priscilla' for the Ta tier's numbers! 
Lucy, a bientot! Au revoir, Gaby! 
I would be gone, 'tis far too late for me. 



g6 yack .• One of Us 

And fare you well, my headstrong hero-boy! 

Break not for me the tenor of your soiree! 
You and the night are young — prolong your 
joy, 

With yon sleek puss-cat panoplied of Poiret! 
But I am done with pallid morns, and coy 

To throats entwined of diamond-dusted moire: 
I, that so often painted Paris red, 
Do now prefer to seek an early bed. 



But you, what time my wheels departing fret 
Down the Rue Pigalle's seven-kissing slope, 

Search out with your unchaperoned Triquette — 
Freed from the custody of watchful trope — 

Those halls where pleasure thrills her minions 

yet. 

Where the Rat Mort's rag-timing Ethiope 
Dins in one's ears the ave atque vale 
Of Mabel Jones and undomestic Bailey! 



What if, long since, Maxim's imposing porter 
Has barred his threshold to the public throng? 

Gold is the key to shuttered stones and mor- 
tar: 
Pay! and ye pass the hidden ways along! 

Or bid the auto bear you to that quarter 
Where, to the blare of band and crash of song 

The painted Paquefleurettes and vieux Satyres 

Dance the machiche at the Bar Palmyre. 



yack .• One of Us 97 

Warm, shall the Nox-Bar's welcome be, and 
attic 
Thence, as the dawn-light deepens, ye may 
stroll, 
Arm linked in arm, uneloquent, ecstatic. 

To break the early-oped boulangers roll; 
Or watch the revellers whirling still, lymphatic, 

In the dim portals of the * Boneless Sole'; 
When flares and dies the flame of Phares 

Ducellier, 
And midinettes return to their ateliers. 



Farewell, and fear not! I shall ne'er disclose 
The orbit nor the goal of your careering. 

My chaste inspirer caters not for those 
That love the lurid detail, lewdly leering. 

So we will woo Castalian repose; 
And, to the * Terminus' sedately veering. 

Leave you with your Parisian Aspasia. 

Once more — good-night ! and trust to our 
aphasia! 



CANTO XI 



Muse mine, our pleasant Wanderjahr is over; 

To charted seas the epic shallop turns. 
See, on the sky-line drear, the cliffs of Dover, 

With Spiers and Pond's unsatisfying urns! 
Sinks not your heart with mine, Bohemian 
rover. 

To watch the wake that ever-widening churns 
'Twixt us and Silver Towers of shattered cane- 
tons^ 
And forfeit orgies at the Cafe Hanneton? 



This is indeed the finish of our travelling. 
Of every foreign trick of trope and trove. 

'Tis hard to find fresh cantos and fresh cavilling, 
When once the anchor drops in homeland cove 

And no new byway waits a bard's unravelling; 
Not though he plumb the depths of West- 
bourne Grove, 

Or strike his lyre where Kensingtonians prance 

Through the debauch of a subscription dance. 

98 



yack / One of Us gg 

Come, let us tread with mincing step and wary, 
Upon the asphalte of our native heath! 

We must walk delicately, and be chary 
To draw our bladed satire from its sheath, 

Here — where the frailest, free'st-supping fairy 
Dons unabashed the strawberry-petalled 
wreath ; 

And each toothed belle at whom we fain would 
scoff, 

Mav be the morrow's bride of some tall toff. 



Here, twice ten thousand legal lights observe us : 

Brief their retort to libel, brief to slander. 
Here Bull on Bull with lowered horns make 
nervous. 
And Carter bells his dudgeoned client's 
dander; 
Lewis is here, with Lewis, to disverve us; 

Friend Withers withereth poetic candour, 
Crying: 'Beware! From Gospel Oak to 

Gamage's, 
A million litigants are out for damages.' 



Aroint ye, lawyers! Fearless we'll intone 
Each risk and rapture of our hero's path; 

From the first hoisting of the danger-cone, 
E'en to the billed and bilious aftermath; 

All his foregatherings with them that drone 



100 jfack .• One of Us 

Their wastrel ways 'twixt Supper Club and 
Bath; 
And how he fell, a second Polydorus, 
Before a Polymnestrix of the Chorus. 



But first, my fighting Muse, in peaceful vein 
Praise we the 'stablished custom of our lands 

Which doth decree that whosoe'er attain 
Their fifth and fatal lustra^ no commands 

Of sire, trustee, nor guardian restrain 

From taking manhood's checks in boyhood's 
hands — 

To double hearts, to back the chancy winner, 

Or give the supper-cat her Sunday dinner. 



'Twas thus for Jack the feast had been prepared, 
The neighbours and the tenantry invited; 

The soup, the cider and the sirloin shared; 
The troth of overlord and yeoman plighted : 

What time the territorial brasses blared. 
And punctual rents were royally requited. 

Of which festivities, the D.E.G. 

Blazoned the tidings to the West Countree. 



E'en so he launched, immaculately shaven, 
Girt in the manly toga Scholte-built, 

From out the minor's law-protected haven; 
And sailed his keel across Life's sifting silt. 



yack ; One of Us loi 

Dark, the clouds lowered above him; hoarse, 
the raven 
Croaked in his cordage, harbinger of guilt; 
And the Muse followed on insistent wings, 
To see him make a shocking mess of things. 



Know ye that block of residential flats 
Hard by the palace of debentured Gillow, 

Where never porters in embroidered hats 
Spy upon youth's nocturnal peccadillo; 

But some discreetly-silent valet pats 
The merry bachelor's unslept-on pillow; 

Where the lifts rise attendantless, and rents 

Are far beyond a scald's emoluments ? 



There, where the vagrant sunbeams somehow 
wreathe 

A strangled coil or two athwart the grime. 
High o'er the surging city's drone and seethe. 

Sojourned my wanderer one summer-time. 
Thence, on a night when June the Jade did 
breathe 

Upon the heart of marchioness and mime, 
Down Regent Street his open taxi flashed 
Unto the fane of Genee and Kyasht. 



For well he played the hazard of the Wheel 
And gave the odds to Fate's impending zero; 



102 yack .• One of Us 

Thou knowest, Truefitt, how he sought thy 
steel, 
His overdue account, his ready cheero; 
Thou too, Hon-hearted Joe, dids't see him streel 

To thy fierce junkets at the Trocadero; 
And was he not, when sager folk flocked bed- 
wards, 
Of thine Empire a citizen, George Edwardes ? 



Upon the Promenade, that eve in June, 
He was the only nux amidst the nuces. 

Who seemed to have no zest in tune nor rune 
That commonly to merriment, conduces. 

As one who on the morrow weds, immune 
To arts of little Evas and of Lucys, 

He paid not, though on every side besought, 

The least lone glasslet of Platonic port. 



'To-night they were to meet! How could he mix 
With them whose heads were cosmetiqued and 
glossy. 

With vapid Vy^ys and with drivelling Dicks 
Who cracked the ancient jibe with ancient 
Flossie ? 

Blind to the Muscovitish dancer*s kicks. 
Deaf to the Dago blast of Bucalossi, 

To him the Oxford manner's scornful *Rot* 

Was as the silly subaltern's * What- What.' 



yack .• One of Us 103 

'Twixt bar and bar the boy perambulated, 
Squirrelwise, round and round, an hour per- 
haps; 
Displeased to find his progress punctuated 
With 'Hello, Jack's,' with 'How de do, old 
chap's,* 
With whiskies proffered and reciprocated. 
His shoulders shrank beneath the friendly 
slaps 
Of such as deemed true social intercourse 
A mingling of the barleycorn and force. 



Before the flickered bioscope had started. 
Leaving the purple haunts of painted ladies, 

Adown the steps to Leicester Square he darted — 
Heedless of Globeward-bound Scheherazades. 

Straight at his word the Gamage-Bell de- 
parted, 
Hearkened the chaufl^eur to his 'Drive like 
Hades'; 

Forgetting ^ chi va piano, va lontano^ 

He gained thy copper porticoes, Romano. 



Waited him Charlie, Norman line's survival; 

And Herbert, brewer-baronet's descendant. 
But where were Phyllis Edge, and Eve St. 
Ival? 

And Doris D'Arcy, famous for the pendant 



104 y^ck .• One of Us 

With which the Rajah routed every rival? 
Vainly they questioned waiter and attend- 
ant . . . 

When lo! that instant, through the glassy por- 
tals 

Burst the three goddesses to sup with mortals. 



Arose shrill chattering. *So sorry, Charlie/ 
* Fancy! the guv'nor was in front to-night, 
And so we had to wait for the finale!' 

*My dear, I'm simply dying for a bite.' 
*It wasn't our fault, really; don't be snarly!' 
'Aren't we just late though?' 'Is my hair all 
right? 
We got into our things in such a hurry 
I hadn't time to brush it, in my flurry.' 



Then down the room, surveyed of each be- 
holder, 
Swept the swift sextet to their alcove-table. 
Luigi's own self, with courtly-bending shoulder, 
Decreed their Magnum's vintage and its 
label ; 
Charged the wine-waiter Ice it even colder; 
Bade one bring melon — and amid the 
babel 
Of all the Gaiety and half the Lyric, 
Withdrew to universal panegyric. 



yack ; One of Us los 

Dust is the fame, Romano's! and the glory 
Of them that feasted in your Roman's reign! 

Married, your mightiest; or, all too hoary. 
To Eustace Miles their gouty course is ta'en. 

Though the screened couples in your upper 
storey 
Still hear the cork pop and the laugh inane; 

Though, in your luncheon-hour, a man may spy 

Some few survivors of great days gone-by; 



No more within your arabesques foregather 
The men and women of the lusty yore. 

'Neath frescoed horrors, flaccid flappers blather; 
The bounder bounds, uncurbed, upon your floor 

And feeble faces, innocent of lather. 

Mock at the ghosts of them that supped 
before. 

Not such, was Jack ! the thrill of things aestival 

Fired every nerve in him for Eve St. Ival. 



She was no pallid picture-postcard smiler; 

Red, the hot blood through all her pulses ran — 
Red as her hair; a dangerous Delilah, 

Skilled to treat man as boy, or boy as man; 
Sweet, when it served, as caramel of Huyler; 

Bitter to those she held beneath her ban. 
Full on the lad, in valuing surmise. 
She bent the keen gaze of her expert eyes. 



io6 yack .• One of Us 

* So you are Jack/ she said. * I Ve heard so much 
Of you, from Doris and the other girls/ 

She paused awhile, and with a master-touch 
Smoothed the rebellion of her auburn curls: 

Then archly added, * Phyllis says you're such 
A real good sport. Do you admire her pearls ? 

Almost as good as Gertie's, aren't they? Her- 
bert! 

Perhaps I will just take a little turbot.' 



Yet once again she turned to him. 'I hear 
That you're so clever. Mostly, men I know 

Are quite too stupid. Charlie is a dear. 

Of course; and so is Herbert — but they're 
slow. 

Now I like clever men. I say, it's queer 
I haven't ever seen you at our show.* 

* But I've seen you,' quoth Jack. Eve answered 
coyly : 

*I like your hair; most chaps wear theirs so oily.' 



Screened by her whole artillery alluring. 
The bold invader tested every track: 

With reek of scent, with flash of manicuring, 
Her charming squadrons flew to the attack: 

Now pert, now proud, now rude, now reassuring 
She strove to captivate, and capture. Jack: 

While he, as was his wont to tactics tender, 

Lowered his voice in token of surrender. 



yack .• One of Us 107 

Band above, played 'The Orchid'; and there- 
under, 
Quail followed turbot, peaches followed quail. 
Fragrant, the coffee steamed ; and ah ! the wonder 

To feel its warmth ere lights began to fail. 
Ere every Chloe made her boy refund her 

That coin — bereft of which, none dare assail 
Those curtained courts where silver mirrors 

stand 
And the chained lip-salve mocks the pilfering 
hand. 



Pink, the lamps gleamed on Eve's delicious 
throat ; 

Gleamed on the tendrils of each tress aclamber 
About her tiny ears; to rubies smote 

Her name endiamonded upon the amber 
Of tube between her lips; flushed Cypriote 

The marble curves from nape to shoulder's 
camber. 
Before the roseate magic she exhaled. 
The charms of Phyllis and of Doris paled. 



Twas not to them Jack hinted: *We might 
sup 
Alone, one night when youVe got nothing 
doing.' 
*Twas not for them he overset his cup. 
In the excitement of his whispered wooing. 



io8 jfack .• One of Us 

He uttered not of them: Til pick you up 
And see you home'; nor was it their pooh- 
poohing, 
Their pensive and recalcitrant demeanour. 
That made his protestations all the keener. 



'Twas Eve that knew how supper, once declined, 
Works more than many motor-rides to 
Skindles; 

How youth soon wearies of the proffered rind. 
But hotly for withholden fruit enkindles — 

Burning that flame to deities unkind. 
Which on the altars of acceptance dwindles. 

'Twas Eve that played him, as men play the 
luce. 

Till waning midnight bade her call a truce. 



Now England's curfew tolled with equal doom 
The knell of all who plied the licensed trade. 
Vain matches sputtered through the smoky 
room. 
As the scarce-scrutinised accounts were paid. 
Vague shapes moved softly; gorgeous in the 
gloom. 
Rustled and clinked each homeward-heading 
maid. 
Lingered a remnant; querulous to these, 
One spake unceasing: 'Gentlemen! Time, 
please! !' 



yack .- One of Us 109 

Last to depart, cajoled, upbraided, chidden, 
Jack and his party dawdled in the hall. 

Cloaked, the three charmers stood — their out- 
lines hidden 
In musquash pelt and velvet's masking pall. 

Tipped, was the page; one portly porter bidden 
For taxis twain with might and main to call; 

His fellow-Magog's hardly slimmer form 

Sped off in quest of Miss St. Ival's brougham. 



The taxis ticked, the brougham arrived — yet 
loth. 

Each girl appeared, to tear herself away. 
Phyllis pecked Doris; Eve embraced them 
both; 

Many a futile word they found to say. 
The staid old coachman, with a muttered oath, 

Restrained the nervous mare's impatient play*; 
Cursing, beneath his deferential breath, 
'Females wot works a 'orse and man to death.' 



The moments fled — and still farewells unending 
Flowed from sweet lips; while waiting 
cavaliers 
Fretted and fumed in vain; while, bedward- 
wending. 
The muftied waiters passed to humbler 
spheres. 



no yack .- One of Us 



At last, to each a white-gloved hand extending, 
Eve spake the final 'Well, good-night, my 

dears/ 
Her brougham shot forward 'neath a double 

load . . . 
And bore my hero to Acacia Road. 



Down the quiet Strand, across Trafalgar Square, 
Thundered the hooves; the Carlton flared no 
longer; 

Wide-windowed Clubland listened to the mare 
Clattering down Pall Mall's deserted donga; 

And with each stride her mistress was aware 
Of Jack's desire for kisses, growing stronger. 

Her instinct knew each thought of his de- 
vising. 

Her soul condemned him for unenterprising. 



On, up St. James's Street, to Piccadilly; 

Never a word the watchful maiden spake 
Save once, a soft-reproving 'Don't be silly* 

When he essayed her hand in his to take. 
Light is the rose to pluck, and light the 
lily, 

But hard — too hard for novice arms to 
break — 
The prickly stalk that carries, falsely prim, 
The everlasting-flower of stage-girl's whim. 



yack ; One of Us in 

Now through Park Lane the rubbered circles 
rolled, 

And Eve, relaxing, murmured: 'I'm so weary.' 
Her dyed head drooped upon the velvet's fold; 

Her rouged lips sighed, that erst had been so 
cheery. 
'Twas then her comrade, waxing overbold. 

Obeyed the counselling of Peter Keary. 
Too late! Who kisses not, when first he may — 
When kiss he would, resenting virgins flay! 



She rose in wrath. 'I was a fool,' she said, 
*To think that you were different from the 
rest. 

Do you suppose, because I've just been fed 
At your expense, I'm yours upon request .f" 

Flicked by her stinging words, the angry red 
Flushed up beneath Jack's pallor's pahmpsest: 

Where older rakes had never cared a damn bit. 

He was too young to recognise the gambit. 



Too young to guess such anger merely feigned. 
The languor but a sensuous device — 

Or know the fierce-eyed pantheress unchained 
Purrs, to correct caressing, in a trice — 

He frowned where raillery had served ; disdained 
The half-heard 'After all, you're rather nice.' 

Offended, throbbed his breast beneath its starch; 

Heedless of Angel or of Marble — Arch. 



112 yack ; One of Us 

But low laughed Eve to mark the stripling's rage ; 

Nor found the signs of temperament dis- 
pleasing. 
She sensed the coming joys of tutelage, 

The facile firing and the facile freezing; 
The jewelled tributes he must pay, as gage 

For trivial boons; the rich rewards of teasing: 
And quoth, regardful of the end in sight: 
*One day, I'll let you kiss me; not to-night!' 



Between them, silence fell. The brougham shot on 
Pass sleepy terraces to Finchley Road 

And Hebrew Vales of Outer-Babylon. 

From rigid Jehu's back the buttons glowed. 

Lord's gloomed against their vision, and was gone ; 
Greyly on either side the pavements flowed; 

When this their world was noiseless as the grave. 

It did seem such a pity to behave! 



And yet they did. Not even at the last 
Kissed they, when key-in-hand the tempt- 
ress stood; 

Not even when, those iris orbs upcast. 

She spoke the fond * Good-night, dear, and be 
good.' 

He raised his hat; beyond her ken he passed. 
Into the depths of the Johnsonian Wood; 

And as he passed, upon the sky was born 

The first faint flushing of another dawn. 



CANTO XII 



'Tis fine to drink the founts of learning dry, 
By Oriel's Quads or Balliol's shaven closes; 

To browse away the morn upon that *High' 
Where parti-coloured every New man's hose 
is; 

Fine, with the * House's' bloodlings, to decry 
The Magdalen faces and the Brazen noses, . . 

And yet, to them that wish for wider knowl- 
edge, 

Our London teaches more than any College. 



Not Jowett, Jebb, nor suchlike Dons renowned, 

Settled the courses of Jack's education ; 
But belle donne, exquisitely gowned. 

Primed him in corset-lectures on flirtation. 
At board and hall wise mistresses he found, 
Who preached the Law by precept and 

probation; 
And Caution's Curve was hinted to him starkly 
By delicate divorcees at the Berkeley. 

113 



114 y^ck .• One of Us 

Mayfairies walked him through Platonic mazes, 
Belgravias warned him of West Hampstead's 
wines ; 
Slade-students showed how unconventional 
phrases 
May lead to crises when a minx repines. 
Chez Scott, he met and mastered mayon- 
naises ; 
Chez Kettner, knelt to velvet-setteed shrines; 
Was coached to snatch the snack 'twixt rub and 

rub 
By the Free-Fooders of the Auction Club. 



And one was there, a dealer in finesse, 
Victrix of many an over-doubling bout. 

An unprotected spinster — none the less 
No prey of such as risk the slim * Without.* 

She could discard a heart with sure address, 
Or put the proffered diamond to rout; 

And of her words that club was gey afraid. 

Knowing her wont to call a spade, a spade. 



Cora, men named her; 'Carpe* was her motto. 
Hers were the wiles that Prevost first con- 
strued. 
Hers was a basement-flat's brocaded grotto; 
Hers was the yielding pose that masks the 
prude. 



yack ; One of Us iis 

spite of a neck as pillar carved of Giotto, 
Of naughty mouth, and iove-locks sable- 
hued, 
A maiden — chill as any of the cloisters; 
If not above free caviar and oysters. 



Her morning movements, who might follow 
them — 

The shopping stroll, the telephonic babble? 
For her, real day commenced at four p.m. 

When the bridge-rooms were opened to the 
rabble 
Of shuffling harpies and the tribes of Shem; 

When the arch-priestesses of gibble-gabble, 
Laises of the pack and dummy Jaels, 
Fought for the favours of limacine males. 



Jack! were they true, the things the old cats 
spake 
Of you and her? Or merely evil rumour? 
Were you so doltish as to undertake 

The thankless role of them that cash the 
stumer. 
To let your slender patrimony slake 

The many wants of Cora's captious humour? 
For so they said, with comments tart and 

galling; 
Till Clubland hearkened to their caterwauling. 



ii6 yack .• One of Us 

Hearkened — to Miss Delaine, what time she 

hinted 
Yours was the purse whence Cora's debts 

were paid; 
Wondering, aloud, how one who erst had 

stinted, 
Now boasted Paquin models and a 

maid. 
(Poor Miss Delaine! her mop was Titian- 
tinted, 
Though the roots turned at times a darker 

shade; 
While Cora's coal-black coils shone quite her 

own. . . 
Hence, peradventure, the embittered tone!) 



Hearkened — what time one vicious widow- 
ette 

Gave tongue, and followed on a breast-high 
scent; 

Yapping how one of her friend's friends had 
met 
Some one who swore you settled Cora's 
rent. 

'I really cant believe it, dear — and yet, 
How is it that she's grown so affluent .f" 

Hearkened — when Mrs. Eaton-Terrace mut- 
tered 

That Cora knew which side her bread was 
buttered. 



yack ; One of Us iiy 

Boy! we are taught that never smoke uprises, 
But some fire, somewhere, somehow, be the 
reason ; 
That never child of iEolus disguises 

His Hghtest gustlet from the blown straw's 
treason. 
You say there was no ground for the surmises 
Which shook the Auction Club that summer 
season ; 
That / have cause to know what venom drips 
From all white fingers that caress the pips. 



Maybe . . . but as I watched ye twain at 
play. 

My faith misgave me, and I marvelled sore. 
For why should Cora but in farthings pay. 

Whene'er to you she lost the heavy score; 
While, for the tricks that she had thrown away. 

Her partner bled in twopennies, or more.'* 
Twas strange ; and strange that she should take, 

*in fun,' 
Such gold as you and she, co-partnered, won. 



'Small wonder,' thought I, as she gripped the 

cash 

And thrust it home her many notes among, 

'If those who had so writhed beneath the 

lash — 

The biting lash — of her unbridled tongue, 



ii8 yack ; One of Us 

Should seize on such temerity, as rash 
A gauntlet as a gambler ever flung, 
To mark against her in the gossip-game! 
Small wonder — she herself had done the same.* 



Methought how she had said Miss Cutthroat's 
morals 
Were just as hopeless as her no-trump leads. 
Miss Honor's nose no paler than her corals; 
How she had sneered at Widow Hotstuff's 
weeds, 
And helped to fan the sparks of countless 
quarrels, 
Of never-ending discords sown the seeds: 
Methought of searching queries she'd let 

slip 
Anent one friendly pair's relationship. 



And as I listened to their wicked wits 
Fashioning mastodons of every mole: 

*'Tis well,' said I. *Now she and they are 
quits. 
The world is wise, and none are truly 
whole. 

Doubtless those Friday lunches at the Ritz 
Prelude a week-end at the Metropole; 

And the half-crown that pays her taxi-cab 

Confirms the fixed allowance of their blab.' 



"Jack ; One of Us iig 

There, there, my fool ! A truce to your protesting ! 

I reaHse the two of you were blameless; 
Nor would I probe your methods of investing 
Those checks for which the counterfoils are 
nameless. 
Hag Rumour lied, for sure. The Muse was 
jesting; 
She wots that these Bridge-harridans be 
shameless. 
We do believe — our hands as your security — 
That Cora was a paragon of purity. 



Still, for the future, child — experto crede — 
Shun the mixed card-club as you shun the asp ! 

For there the ancient wrangle with the needy, 
Till their post-mortems make a tyro gasp; 

And all our Saint Cecilias, grown greedy. 
Gossip and gamble, grousing as they grasp: 

Wherefore, unwooed of you, let fair or frights 
bridge 

In every den from Berkeley Square to Knights- 
bridge. 



Better an aeon in the Waldorf's courts; 
Better with easy Elsies to philander. 
Where curls are honest-bleached for trusting 
sports 
And Phyllis plies the powder-puff with can- 
dour; 



120 jfack ; One of Us 

Than constant bickerings and sour retorts 

Across the baize where tattle plays the pander. 
Better to buy the Gaiety's caresses, 
Than tap the source of doubling damsels* 
dresses. 



Wipe out the score, and come! Beneath her 
lindens 

Your Eve awaits you now the game is over. 
Are not her limbs as lithe as Topsy Sinden's.? 

Dance thou the Mordkin unto her Pavlova! 
There are your Quatre Bras, and there your 
Mindens ; 

There shall no spy cry treason of your trover! 
Come! I had liefer see you the adorer 
Of ten St. Ivals than a single Cora. 



CANTO XIII 



One summer Sabbath morn — blue day for 
such 

As mope about the statue of Achilles, 
Top-hatted and be-booted overmuch — 

Red-letter morning for the little Willies 
Who toot the motor-horn and slack their clutch 

Before the gates of coryphantine fillies! — 
Observe our hero, Burberried en gala, 
Brake, at the house of Eve, his new Itala. 



His pride, is she; more dear he holds her 
throttle 

Than any moulded throat of them that sing, 
Smoother her sleek torpedo's varnished mottle 

Than softest gloss of cheek's complexioning: 
And woe to him who vesta dares, or dottle. 

Against the sanctity of either wing. 
Loving, he stays her spark; and entering 

straight. 
Follows the capless maid who bids him wait. 

121 



122 yack .• One of Us 

Not once, since first the co-responding Dardan 
Blasphemed the tiring of the Queen of Sparta, 

Has woman begged a long-kept courtier's pardon. 
Drinkless, unsummoned, tarrieth the martyr; 

While cold the tappets grow; and stiff the 
cardan : 
And *0h!' thinks he, *it will be hard to start 
her/ 

For be the lady never so inspiring, 

A novice dreads his cylinders' back-firing. 



He peers at squirrel-wheel and love-birds' cages, 
At awful pictures and appalling china; 

Fretful, he turns the postcard album's pages; 
Traces the cyphers of each photo's signer. 

Ever, beneath the goad, his spirit rages 
To watch the wasted daylight waxing finer. 

Scarce has he time a yawning oath to smother. 

Enters — not Eve, but Eve's amazing mother. 



The self-same scarlet capped the poll maternal 
As incandesced upon the filial crown; 

Doffed every night, it flushed again, diurnal. 
The ruddiest oriflamme in London Town. 

Not one who wooed the daughter's favours 
vernal 
'Scaped the autumnal chants of Ma's renown; 

To each and all, this orison she sung: 

* Do as I did, and work while you are young!' 



yack : One of Us 123 

Yet how she'd moiled, in that Victorian youth 
Long ere the days of telephones or cables, 

Divulged she never — no — nor told forsooth 
How she had gotten diamonds and sables. 

Said some, she was indeed that 'Giddy Ruth' 
Who danced on legendary supper-tables: 

But no man knew by what commercial means 

She had acquired such fortune in her teens. 



* Good-morrow, John,' the sporty dame remarks, 
*And how's yourself.? My word, you do look 
sniffy ! 
Me coming with you.? I don't think! the 
Park's 
More in my line. Eve won't be half a 
jiffy. 
Now you take care of her, my lad. No larks! 
Don't you go getting fined, or come home 
squiffy.' 
(E'en so a valet's artful patter runs, 
Who holds at bay his master's threatening 
duns.) 



At last she comes, her ruby nimbus shrouded 
In pheasant-feather toque and chiffon veiling; 

Clears, in that instant, visage trisie and 
clouded — 
Before the sun-rays of her smile's assailing. 



124 y^ck .- One of Us 

Only he murmurs: 'Skindles will be crowded;* 
Suggests that lunch at Marlow might be 

* nailing.' 
(Reader, mark well, and marvel at her power: 
He laughs, who has been waiting near an 

hour !) 



So to the car; and oh! with what attentions 
He tucks her in, the kindly dash conniving; 

How tactful, counters the misapprehensions 
Fond motherhood displays about his driv- 
ing. 

His hand is on the switch; unreason mentions 
Her fear they may be latish in arriving; 

A crankless start the petrol-god provides. 

And down Acacia Road the racer glides. 



Far have they fared, Telemachus and Mentrix, 
Since first she schooled him not to rush his 
fences ; 
And Venus, gyring orbital eccentrics. 

Has transited the arc of his expenses. 
He's passed Love's thousand kitten-plays and 
hen-tricks. 
Love's moods conditional, Love's future 
tenses, 
Love's presents. Love's imperatives — to find 
Love's perfect conjugation still declined. 



yack .• One of Us 125 

In Tiffany's, in Carder's despite, 
The higher planes are hid from his erotics. 

Unmoved by any bloom of Carlton White, 
By Felton's or by Solomon's exotics, 

Star-like, aloof, divine, remotely bright, 
(Praise belladonna, mildest of narcotics!) 

Her eyes just deign to scan emotion's birth: 

Only to seek the void again, in mirth. 



Jack, have a care; nor pile too high the debts 
Because one chorus lady will not kiss you! 

Have done with orchids, motor-landaulets. 
And jewelled trifles wrapped about in tissue! 

That impish janitor George Edwardes sets 
To guard the passage whence his houris issue. 

Knows you too well amidst the laddish laity 

That throngs the Aldwych entrance of the 
Gaiety! 



Friend Oddy bows too low before your coming! 

Too quick, the guardian of Boulter's Lock 
Touches his cap to greet your launches humming 

Their challenged progress through the lunch- 
hour's block! 
Too oft have I descried your broker thumbing 

The rustling parchments of discarded stock! 
There are too many of your I.O.U.'s 
In the locked coffers of the waiting Jews I 



126 yack .- One of Us 

A lot you care for them this Sunday morning! 

Your fingers play upon each shining lever; 
Your siren shrieks its triple-whistled warning, 

Flies from your path the barely-missed 
retriever. 
Peril of fines and risked endorsements scorning, 

Faster and faster speed the wheels; while 
Eva 
Nods her approval, sympathetic, radiant. 
Each time on 'top' you top some easy gradient. 



Through Uxbridge town your low two-seater 
sweeps ; 
A tramless tarmac now, the grey road pours. 
Sudden, beneath your urging foot, she leaps; 
The carburettor moans; the cut-out roars; 
Round the marked dial the tell-tale needle 
creeps. 
Over the hill to Beaconsfield she soars; 
Streaks down the vale, a blur of flecked maroon. 
Till Wycombe's chimneys bar the smokeless 
noon. 



Leftwards she 'scends — alas, on lower gear. 

A league below, the ribbon Thames unrolls 
From Hurley Lock to Cookham's Kosher Weir, 

That weir whose waves are packed with punt- 
ing Poles. 



yack ; One of Us 127 

A faint haze shimmers over marge and mere. 
Your gate-change cHcks through all its four 

controls ; 
On hushed 'direct,' her downward course she 

takes; 
The pliant clutch supplants the rasping brakes. 



Eve! it may be, no more ye ride together. 
Arm touching arm that twirls the steering 
pillar. 

Autumn impinges swift on summer weather, 
As Surrey cedes her fame to Aston Villa. 

Scorn not the Paphian's Cytherean tether! 
Forget, forego the pose of false Priscilla ! 

Has he not waited long.? To-day 'twere 
meeter 

To reckon ^ La Commedia e finita! 



Ho, landlord of the Angler! stap your best! 

Snorts a fresh car to join your lengthy rota. 
Grin welcome, and uncoat the honoured guest 

Who brings Miss Eve St. Ival — hand 
ignota ! 
Prepare to sacrifice the chicken's breast. 

Let lesser limbs be lesser lunchers' quota! 
For them, though others starve, let waiters 

clear 
The window-table by the tumbling weir! 



128 yack .- One of Us 

Now mix with simples and with luscious herb, 
With strawberries, with soda and with cider, 

A cup to quench their thirst! Try not, to 
curb 
The Kodaks of the quidnuncs who have spied 
her! 

For rarely doth publicity disturb 
A nibbling actress or her meal's provider; 

Rather he asks attention, who affords 

The bounding beauties of the British boards. 



The}" who have dawdled with some playful 
charmer, 

Their luncheon over, on the river's bank; 
Weary of Dunlop and of corded Palmer, 

Tired of the shifting gauge, the shafted 
crank ; 
Stayed by the water's restful panorama. 

Lulled by the music of the rowlock's clank; 
They know, and they alone, the tranquil joy 
That comes to you this afternoon, my boy. 



Watch well the eyes of Eve! No longer 
haught}', 
Earthwards at last the hard-won goddess 
bendeth. 
Lips that so mocked, relax to 'rather naughty'; 
Ears that were deaf, to whispered hint she 
lendeth. 



yack •• One of Us i2g 

Often the top-speed of a racing 'forty' 

To some such softening of a siren tendeth. 
Bide you your time! mayhap, when Dian 

rises, 
Some gladsome bay shall crown your enterprises. 



Hark, 'twas the five-fold chime of Lipton's 
nectar! 
See, her ringed fingers fidget with the tongs ! — 
Wait ! The sun sinks — soon mother will ex- 
pect her — 
Yet still she lingers — still the tea prolongs. 
Yon church-bells peal to summon choir and 
rector; 
List, 'tis the organ-chant of evensongs ! 
Quick! Ere she's time to change the fractious 

front. 
Settle her deftly in the cushioned punt! 



Nay, not upstream! where never friendly rushes 
Shall screen the preludes of your primal 
kisses. 

Down ! By the Quarry Woods, the river hushes ; 
Far from a lover's ken the loud launch hisses. 

There, the gelt barbel and the missel-thrushes 
Shall be the sole spectators of your blisses; 

There, in your arms, reluctant, adjectival. 

Take and possess you once of Eve St. Ival! 



130 yack ; One of Us 

Twilight: breezes and wavelets sink to 
slumber . . . 

Beneath green boughs, the fairies of the dusk 
Are weaving veil on veil of gauzy umber; 

Perfumed, awaken mint and river-musk; 
Softly the weir-race croons its cradle number; 

Steals round the bend the Delta s twinkling 
busk . . . 
Starlight above: below, star-shadows shielding 
The transports of another Naiad's yielding. 



'Darling, IVe always loved you. . . . Won't 
you say. 
Only this once, you care a bit for me.?* 
'Don't Jack, . . . please, please don't ask me 
that to-day. 
To-day of all days. ... If I had been free, 
I might have loved you.' *Eve, don't turn 
away . . . 
Sweetheart, do give me just one kiss . . . 
ah, be 
A little kinder!' — Stop this chatter. Jack! 
'Tis not the hour for parley, but attack! 



Do I consume the filamented candle 
That you should falter with the end in sight ? 

Have not these cantos taught you how to 
handle 
The moods of knowing and of neophyte \ 



yack ; One of Us 131 

Prowess, not pretty words we use, who dandle 

The coy resisters of a summer's night. 
Think of the many times youVe been a 

suitor. 
And do not bring disgrace upon your tutor! 



That's better! slide one arm beneath her waist! 

Set your right hand, compelling, on her 
shoulder! 
Doth she protest ? — a little only. Haste ! 

Let not the flush of your embrace grow 
colder ! 
Now, in one raptured struggle interlaced. 

Body to body, breast to breast enfold her; 
Till eye with eye and lip with lip afire 
Kindle the answering fever of desire! 



Enough, enough of stolen boon and granted! 
Cry truce to hot-lipped kiss on hair and 
throat. 
To eager hands that clung, to heart that panted. 
To mouth that begged for passion's antidote! 
Up! and out-root the steel-shod pole you 
planted. 
Unbind the chain that holds the rocking 
boat, 
And fare you forth, in fear of mist and midge. 
To where the Angler gleams below the bridge! 



132 yack ; One of Us 

Not all your days, come widowette, come wed- 
lock, 
Shall memory of this evening wholly leave 
you: 
You shall not quite forget one loosened red 
lock, 
So long as female subtleties deceive you. 
And when grim Charon poles you to his Dead- 
lock 
Where the Past's wailing wraiths rise up to 
grieve you, 
Rhadamanth's self shall pass no single stricture 
Upon the recollection of this picture. 



And when, yourself a ghost, you stroll distraught 
Along the towing-path of asphodel. 

You shall see mirrored in your ghostly thought 
A phantom punt that rides the phantom 
swell. 

Prone in her bow a shadow-figure, fraught 
With charms once yours — alas, intangible. 

Then shall your homing soul beat pinioned 
wings. 

In hopeless yearning for lost earthly things. 



Then shall you spot sprite-landlords, silhouetted 
In spirit-doorways, waving you good-bye; 

Hear a dream-village echo to the fretted 
Throb of your cut-out ; make the ghost-car fly 



yack .• One of Us 133 

Down Lethe's chestnut avenues vignetted 
In beams of mouldered Rushmore's brill- 
iancy; 

And in the tartarean darkness feel 

Eve's hand touch your hand on the steering- 
wheel. 



Thus shall you motor with your spectre-mate 
By hairpin turnings of Cocytus Road ; 

Till cobra-coiffed the jealous Furies wait — 
As waits to-night in daughterless abode 

That mother-Fury's horrid-scowling pate, 
Reft of pink wig and massive molar's load . . 

Even in Acheron, that memoried glimpse 

Shall hurl you howling to the nether imps! 

Sl2 sSb Sli (£2 

Reader, what of the sequel ? Cuter scribes. 
With sharper quills than my old-fashioned 
Muse's, — 
Mongermen of the Carmelitish tribes. 
The Star's reporters and the Evening 
News's — 
Served up that theme for thoughtless cockneys' 
jibes. 
Hot as the fragrance of Old Ireland's stews 
is. 
So fierce that day were journalistic volleys. 
Men fired no gratis puffs to boom The Follies. 



134 y^ck .• One of Us 

These were the lurid words the posters carried, 
Through the black hours of Monday after- 
noon: 
'Gaiety's Loss.' 'Another Actress Married.' 
'Green-room Romance.' 'The Secret Honey- 
moon.' 
Each Bond Street lounger paused, each tea- 
girl tarried, 
To read who was the lady, who the loon. 
Dulcineas at the Carlton and the Ritz 
Gasped, 'Can it be my Quixote .-* Is it Fitz.?' 



All upper-case, the leaded headlines ran: 
'Miss Eve St. Ival at the altar-rail' 

'Stage-favourite, last of famous Scottish clan. 
The Lairds Mac Ivalcon of Maida Vale, 

Wedded at Westminster to wealthy man.' 
Below, the twelve-point pica shrieked its 
tale: 

'We learn the honeymoon is to be spent 

In the groom's motor on the Continent/ 



It was indeed a triumph of reportship: 

They gave the artiste's roles, her lap-dog's 
photo ; 
Age, birthplace, hobbies, candidates in court- 
ship . . . 
One name alone was hid from their Onoto — 



yack .• One of Us 13s 

The bridegroom's! If he banked, or broked, or 

fought ship, 
Were airman, yeoman, Crown Prince of 

Sokoto — 
That was the missing Hnk in yellow history, 
A blank, unplumbed, unfathomable mystery. 



Some impious incognito had whisked 
Its leading lady from the English stage; 

Some Vanderbilt of Vanderbilts had risked 
Her agent's claims, her impressario's rage; 

But who? What infant Icarus had frisked 
Beyond the range of Fleet Street's inkiest 
sage ? 

Canards there were, vague guesses, intuitions: 

But no firm fact writ clear in those editions. 



A thousand theories petrified the West: 

Some deemed Gillett's the blade; to some, 
'twas plain 
A Rosslyn's handiwork stood there confessed; 
These accused Kitchener; those, Teddy 
Payne. 
The Bachelor's Club was *blowed'; the Bath 
was 'blessed'; 
Aghast Athenians beat their brains in vain; 
The marble palace of the R.A.C. 
Buzzed its loud members' curiosity. 



136 yack .- One of Us 

Ask not of me to tell you ! 'tis too sad 
The final tragedy of this my verse: 

Nameless let him remain, that ruined lad 
Who took red Eve for better or for worse; 

Who bowed in shame the white hairs of his dad, 
And earned his broken mother's dying 
curse! . . . 

Yet know, the victim of that Marriage-Monday 
Was not the madcap motorist of Sunday! 



CANTO XIV 



To them whose lives are gyved by no constraint 
Saving the Meal, the Shave, the Manicure — 

Who, hearing duty's clarion sounding faint, 
Have turned away to follow pleasure's lure — 

A sure day dawns, when ennui's carking taint 
Maketh each hour an aeon to endure: 

Too decadent to sin, too bored to bound. 

These, as the cab-horse, ply their sluggish 
round. 



Ever they loaf, of Bond Street's best observed, 
Whither the grill-room or the bridge-club 
becks: 

Tired eyes that stare, *neath bowlers deeply 
curved ; 
Oiled, empty crania on craning necks. 

Of languor sapped, of indolence unnerved, 
Late-risen emblems of a neuter sex. 

Aimless, monocled, mooching willy-nilly. 

They crawl down Dover Street to Piccadilly. 

.137 



138 yack ; One of Us 

Alas, to think of my Sir Galahad 
Among their ranks! to see those cheeks grow 
whiter, 
That bright glance as a dog's glance stricken 
sad. 
Those wrists gone thin, those trousers tail- 
ored tighter! 
Alas my *Don Juan,' a 'Dunciad'! 

Wilt thou not aid him, Lady Aphrodita? 
By thy command, the Camp, the Court, were 

shut; 
And naught but this is left — to be a *nut/ 



Is he to be as they for whom no twinges 
Of wakening conscience stir the deadened 
brain ? 

In him, still leaps the flame of hope and tinges 
His darkling soul; and still some little pain 

For the fine things he might have done, im- 
pinges 
Upon the thing he does. Is it then vain? 

Have they who judged him falsely at the start, 

Made him for aye a man from men apart? 



Regard the comrades of his Eton days. 
The 'minors' of the 'majors* that he knew 

This one, a cheery sportsman of the Bays; 
That one, a pillar of the Oxford crew. 



yack ; One of Us 139 

Hear me, O Mother! gracious are thy way; 
To each thou gav'st his meed of manhood*s 
due — 
The Bar, the Mart, the Hustings, or the Mess; 
While Jack has no career but Idleness! 



For him, remains the week-end at Dieppe — 
Le Cinqy he stands on, plundered of the 
Seven; 
Friendship of wastrel and of demirep; 

Infrequent visits to his native Devon; 
Exiguous whisky in colossal Schweppe; 
The fuddled couch, the breakfasts at 
eleven; 
The gloom of settling-days that find him 

stony ; 
The gleam when Gant or Duggie yields a *pony/ 



Thou, who hast outlawed him to this abyss 
Where Effort enters not, nor brave Ambi- 
tion — 

But, pale as shadows from the realms of Dis, 
Slack youth awaits the afternoon edition, 

Weighing the nutshell form of that or this 
To the slow curl of cigarette's ignition — 

Thou, for whose sake he dared one decent 
thing. 

Grant me thy succour for his rescuing! 



140 jfack ; One of Us 

The spring was come, and down the Ladies' 
mile 

Rode the Hnked squadrons of the heavy liver; 
Bloomed in the West the daffodils of style, 

At dance and court fresh debutantes did quiver: 
But Jack was scourged of retrospection's bile; 

Daylong his drinks had swollen like a river, 
As, shade on shade, the past's envisaged ghosts 
Had gibbered to him at the Azure Posts. 



Borne on the partridge-wings of Johnnie Walker, 
Had Amy's guilty spook bemoaned its shame ; 

Had German Elsa smiled, and, leagued to balk 
her. 
The Vermonts — Susie, Marion, and Mame ; 

Anew he'd 'scaped the county's deadliest stalker. 
Leaving that Alice who was his to claim; 

Anew he'd play for threepennies with Cora, 

Supped a Triquette, and been red Eve's adorer. 



But ever o*er the flimsy wraiths had towered 
The massive bogey of his instant state: 

For debt and dun from every lattice lowered; 
So that, or Carey Street must be his fate. 

Or he must wed some maiden amply dowered, 
Or beard 'the governor' in hot debate . . . 

Ere midnight chimed he fled that haunted pub, 

To seek distraction at the Supper Club. 



yack .- One of Us 141 

Grafton, where once La Tonkinoise resounded 

And a bold boy might earn the pearly gage! 
Grafton, where maris complaisants abounded, 
How art thou changed from that ecstatic 
age 
When first our sacred coterie was founded! 

To-night, the draggled fringes of the stage 
Profane thy boards — whence erst our law, 

censorious, 
Banned not the quick, but blackballed the 
notorious. 



Jack stood half-dazed within the doorway's 
shelter, 

Eyed of the sofaed pairs beneath the fern. 
Or in a cadenced pause, or helter-skelter. 

He watched the close-held couples shift and 
turn; 
Making no move to join the dance's welter. 

To more than one, 'twas easy to discern 
He deemed the two-step's mazes over-risky 
For limbs that shook with triple-planet whisky. 



His ears were stunned with stamp and swish 
and blither; 
Over his eyes it seemed a veil was cast. 
Across whose woof blurred shapes and vague 
did slither — 
Matron and maid, respectable and fast. 



142 yack .• One of Us 

When lo! now hither swaying, and now thither, 
Drove other vision of the vanished past . . . 
Where had he seen that form before, and where 
The raven shimmer of that lustrous hair? 



In what forgotten pleasure-time, long dead. 
Had that frilled comet cleaved its radiant 
swath 
Athwart the lesser stars? Whence memoried, 

That pang of separation's aftermath? 
Had he not known and loved that dainty 
head. 
Or e'er his feet had trod their downward 
path 
Of present guilt ? Or was it but a trick 
Of maddened sense, that cut him to the quick? 



Did he but dream? Or died away the din 
Of rag-time's ramping thud, till, strangely 
clear, 
The mystic wedding-bells of Lohengrin 

Stole benisons upon his magicked ear? 
No dream! the last haze sundered, letting in 

The beam of recollection. Sudden, shere 
Across the murk of storm-scud's wrack and 

rift. 
Outshone the countenance ... of Prudence 
Swift! 



yack ; One of Us 143 

'Twas she ! his unkissed queen of opera-night, 
The first-desired of joyous long-agos! 

'Twas she indeed! Arrayed in filmy white, 
She floated by — each step a new repose ; 

Haloed of love-rays, satin-skinned and slight, 
Unjewelled, but at her brow one scarlet rose. 

His marvelling glance commanded, hers obeyed, 

Till Recognition leaped — and lit — and stayed. 



Straight at that look his inmost being swore 
This time, at least. Hag Fate should not 
defeat him. 
This was the hand of destiny! no more 

Should scruple hold, nor ill-timed shyness 
cheat him! 
The music ceased. Burred accent, as of yore. 
Explained how vurry pleased she was to meet 
him. 
And how she would be glad if he were able 
To join the party at her supper-table. 



Now neither gods above nor men on earth 
May mix, unmoved, the barley and the grape ; 

And none may gaze on eyes alight with mirth 
Nor rippled contour's scarce-concealed shape — 

But in him Fancy's Phoenix, taking birth 
From old flames' ashes, flutters to escape: 

So Jack, forgotten debts, discarded troubles. 

Kisses Pandora in the breaking bubbles. 



144 y^ck ; One of Us 

I see him, Prudence preening at his side, 

With every instant gay, and gayer, growing: 
Lamps gleam and glasses touch; deft waiters 
glide; 
Jest follows jest where Clicquot's best is 
flowing. 
Yet each and all of them whose laughter 
vied 
With his and hers, have passed from out my 
knowing ; 
Save that I spy, across that festive board, 
The hatchet profile of her Draper Lord. 



For who that hands the purse-strings to a 
wife, 

Can e'er forget the face of Silas Swift? — 
Silas, black stirrer of domestic strife. 

Cold key to turn the female barque adrift — 
Silas whose visage, lithoed to the life 

Beckons from hoarding, omnibus and lift — 
Whose telephone's unnumbered coils outrun 
The wires of Gerrard and of Western One. 



How can I limn my hero, crazy-keen, 

Drinking the burr of Prue's responsive 
prattle ; 
The glamour of her corsage and the sheen 
Of shoulder's curve; the chink of gilded 
chattel ; 



yack ; One of Us 14^ 

When rises ever that fell brow between, 

Creased with deep scheming for the coming 
battle, 
Weighing the wording of his 'Opening Sale* 
For Telegraph and Chronicle and Mail ? 



I watch them dancing, dancing — and I 
guess 
Their elfin spirits summoning each to 
each; 
Lips that deny the heart its yeamed-for yes; 

Pulses that give the lie to frigid speech; 
Forbidden fruit of southern comeliness. 

Dangling delicious out of boyhood's reach . . . 
Confound the power which draws my tempted 

pen 
To that Napoleon of Dry-Goods Men! 



/ only wonder if her husband cares; 

Whether he knows, and mindeth not at 
all, 
The secret of the alcove on the stairs, 

The meaning of the hand-clasp in the 
hall. 
Inscrutable are multi-millionaires! 

Perchance his jealousy is rankling gall 
To see his lady dallying with Jack — 
Perchance he plots a cut in huckaback. 



146 yack ; One of Us 

Would that I knew! but all is faint and hidden, 
A lost stone of my story's diadem. 

I hear the sleepy chauffeur homev/ard-bidden ; 
I catch the flirt of Prue's uplifted hem; 

The Rolls-Royce gathers speed . . . falls back, 
outridden. 
My Pegasus. We may not fare with them 

Adown the road of motorists accursed. 

Unto the Willet-haunts of Chislehurst. 



Yet, Microbe-Muse, before thou sink'st to rest 
In the embrace of thy Germ-Sisters Nine, 

Thank the bland goddess of the argent breast, 
Philommedis, Phallommeda divine, 

Who granted this her worshipper's request; 
And stooped in kindly clouds incarnadine, 

Vouchsafing of her grace a further ray 

To light her page along his outlawed way! 



CANTO XV 



Great is the power of Venus ! She estranges 
The wedded pair, or mates illegal turtles: 

Her cestus parts — and lo ! Youth's outlook 
changes, 
His mourning cypresses become her myrtles; 

Hotfoot adown the flowered ways he ranges, 
Drawn to the flash of disappearing kirtles. 

Parents may grieve and lonesome wives com- 
plain. 

The hunter feels the hunting-thrill again. 



Great are the Deities of Advertising! 

They wave their wands — and palaces are 
builded : 
At every shibboleth of their devising, 

Some dross of earth to earth's desire is gilded ; 
Caught by the magic of their merchandising, 

Mabel in quest of blouses, does as Lil did. 
Let alien hands her cradled offspring rock. 
Woman must have 'that ducky little frock.' 

147 



148 "Jack ; One of Us 

So Jack forsook the bored path and the 
dreary; 
Forgot the bill renewed, the I.O.U., 
The tailor's tantrum and the banker's query; 

To track the footprints of elusive Prue. 
Redeemed from knightly money-lenders, weary 

Of forced garage, the old Itala flew. 
On gorgeous mornings when the summer sun 

shone, 
Down the Kent Road to Chislehurst and 
luncheon. 



But in the heart of London's shopping-centre 
The master-mason and the plasterer toiled: 

With bronze, with marble facia's magenta. 
And four-squared granite where the scroll- 
work coiled. 

They wrought a pleasure-house that all might 
enter. 
Nor e'en the lightest appro-whim be foiled: 

While Silas planned, cigar between his lips, 

The launch of ninety-year debentureships. 



They wand red where his lilies wooed his phloxes, 

Or whirled away to Winchelsea and Rye; 
Keith Prowse gave them the shelter of his 
boxes ; 
Dieudonne screened them from the curious 
eye: 



yack ; One of Us 149 

Till the first breeze of passion's equinoxes 
Scattered the peaceful clouds in friendship's 

sky, 
Till every word and every look grew fraught 
With scarce-veiled meaning of their kindred 

thought. 



And the short season waned. Almost concluded 
Uprose the Parthenon of Regent Street; 

Express by day and Star by night alluded 
To the great hour when work shall be com- 
plete : 

Till the cold sweat that Marshall's brow exuded, 
To Snelgrove's spread; till Fear, on furtive 
feet. 

Sent Rumour of the Transatlantic reiver 

To chill the veins of Robinson and Cleaver. 



But one by one the barriers were falling, 
And she was * Prissy dear' and he was *Boy': 

There were mad moments, blood to young blood 
calling ; 
Partings in anger, reconciled in joy; 

Came times, beyond a wary wife's forestalling. 
When fingers touched and twined in tender 

ploy: 

For Opportunity with daily potions 
Roused the ebullience in their emotions. 



ISO yack .• One of Us 

Gone, were the days of the augustal grouse; 

And with the advent of the browner bird, 
The hammer ceased its tap in Silas House. 

No Hne, no puffing paragraph referred 
To those masked pageants. Quiet as cats that 
mouse 

The magnate's minions waited for the 
word . . . 
Deceptive calm! 'Twas holocaust that burst. 
Upon the morning of October's first! 



Howl, Harrod, howl! Let Gordon Selfridge wail! 

Mingle your tears with Woolland's, William 
Whiteley ! 
Lord Mayors, nor Concert-teas, nor Great 
White Sale, 

Nor shopmen serving never so politely, 
Nor any Bargain Basement, shall avail 

To raise the takings you weep over nightly; 
Since London waked to read that black decree, 
"Our Opening Week — All Wares Eleven-three." 



Panting, they tore from Wandsworth's leafy 
glades. 
From Streatham's hill where chapel nigh to 
church is, 
From Walton's pines and Ilford's soapy shades, 
From Sundridge Park embowered of silver 
birches : 



yack ; One of Us 151 

Married and mateless — mothers — spinster 
maids, 
Lettinglone parrots languish on their perches — 
By tram and tube and train and taxi-cab 
The women of a nation came to grab. 



They flung themselves on selvedges and 
smocking, 
On stoles of skunk and wraps of wolverine, 
They howled like fiends o'er handkerchief and 
stocking, 
They bit, they scratched, they screamed for 
crepe-de-chine. 
Duchess with Mrs. Snookson interlocking. 

Slattern with silk-clad, massaged with unclean, 
Rabid Bacchantes of the shopping lust 
Wrastled and stamped and scrimmaged in the 
dust. 



Daylong the green-clothed Keepers of the Gate 
Fought for their lives against the frenzied 
crowd : 

Riddled with hatpins, ringed with eyes of hate. 
Torn by the fang of frump, the tush of dowd. 

They held their posts until the stroke of eight 
Gave such brief respite as the law allowed. 

And spent improvers blessed the saviour clock, 

Prone 'midst the remnants of their mangled 
stock. 



152 yack .• One of Us 

Their fight was won, their day of battle ended; 

Truce brooded over desk and peristyle: 
But lonely in his sanctum, sombre, splendid, 

The tireless general paced the velvet pile. 
Now this, now that, the master-brain perpended ; 

Here a new ad. of supermunyon guile, 
There a big policy of slaughtered prices . . . 
And left his Prudence to her own devices. 



She was alone. There was not one to cheer her; 

Muffin and crumpet chilled, and China tea. 
Dear to her friends was Prudence Swift, but 
dearer ! — 

Her husband's words, 'All Wares Eleven- 
three.' y 
Bickley was gone, and Bromley came not near her; 

Sidcup was womanless; deserted. Lea; 
And Chislehurst ? — God wot, she never paid 
Her carriaged calls upon the retail trade! 



It was the tea-gown's hour; the firelight gleamed 
On slippered feet and wave of sable tresses: 

Too wild, too beauteous a bird she seemed 
For clumsy Silas's bejewelled jesses. 

'What were cold necklaces to her, who dreamed 
The fiery torque of intimate caresses? 

The pillowed ease of luxury and fashion — 

To her, who craved the restless lash of passion ?' 



yack ; One of Us 153 

* Silas? His sixty years were evil-dated 

To be the playmates of her twenty-five! 
Must she then spend her girlhood's prime un- 
mated ? 
Be as one dead, who was so mad alive? 
The day, the hour, the instant's self was fated ! 
Why count the cost?' Already, down the 
drive. 
She heard the mounting wheels that bore to 

her — 
If she but willed it — the deliverer. 



No need to let suspicious flunkeys fling 
The formal portal to her only guest, 

No need to wait the far-heard, muffled ring. 
Or e'er his cylinders had throbbed to rest, 

Herself in fluttering pink came hastening; 
And all the joy her loneliness confessed. 

Burred in the welcome at her lips' command, 

Pulsed in the pressure of her either hand. 



Silent, she drew him o'er the oaken boards 
Decked with silk tapestry of Persia's loom. 

Unto a doorway where two hauberked lords 
Of jousting-days kept guard upon her room. 

Darkly her Morlands and her William Wards 
Stared from their Adams panels in the gloom; 

For mutual knowledge, tuned to equal pitch, 

Disdained the bright inhospitable switch. 



154 y^ck ; One of Us 

Half-guessed, half-glimpsed, against the greying 
pane — 

As worshippers descry an angel-face 
In some stained window of their childhood's 
fane — 

He knew her profile; knew each darling trace 
Of lash and brow and cheek, and orbs whose rain 

Warred ever with her laughter; slender grace 
He longed to clasp, yet dared not; dimpled charm 
Of satin shoulder and of warm, white arm. 



As he of her, she knew each trait of him ; 
The steel-blue eyes, the head she longed to 
stroke, 
The nervous hands, the poise of muscled limb. 
The sharp man-scent of Harris-tweed and 
smoke. 
And who shall say 'twas only woman's whim? 

Had he but stirred a finger to invoke 
Love's winged boy, small doubt the boy had 

pounced . . . 
He made no move : and dinner was announced. 



Fool! never peeping Tom secured Godiva! 
Fool! who kenned never, whither Fancy 
Hsted ! 
'Twas twilight's hour, emotion's surest shriver; 
He gazed, he yearned, he murmured — and 
desisted: 



yack ; One of Us 755 

Till Dives summoned oysters of Miss Driver, 

And paille-de-menthe deliriously twisted, 
To set the very soul in Prue aware 
Of what it meant to leave a millionaire. 



Conscience, religion, loyalty, nor fear 

Of nisi's doom, had moved as moneyed meal 
did. 
Damask, and Venice glass-ware crystal-clear. 

Orchids, and Sheffield dishes silver-shielded. 
The twelve Apostle-spoons she held so 
dear. 
These she saw lost forever if she yielded ; 
Lost — with her solemn servants, reared in 

houses 
Where faithless as the husband is, the spouse 
is. 



*Did they suspect already? Could she ever 
Endure a deference that cloaked derision. 

The petty subterfuge, the vain endeavour 
To keep things hidden from the pantry's 
vision ? 

Yet dared she take the bolder step and sever. 
In one swift flash of feminine decision, 

The knot that bound her?' . . . Georgian, was 
the tray 

Wherefrom the butler served the Marnier. 



IS6 yack ; One of Us 

Dinner was done; once more they were alone: 
And now she sensed herself upon the verge 
Of vasty gulfs; below her, the unknown. 
His look was lambent flame. She saw the 
surge 
Of blood-beat on his brow. With glance and 
tone 
He lashed her cowardice, as with a scourge: 
*We can't go on like this — it isn't right. 
Chuck the whole show, and come with me — 
to-night P 



* Prissy, it's serious. God knows, I've tried 
To play the game — but, darling, I adore you. 

We can't be merely friends. You must decide. 
Your husband doesn't care a button for you — 

You know it's true — that evening when you 
cried. 
You told me so. Prue sweetheart, I implore 
you. 

Let me take care of you for always — fill 

Your life with love. My dearest, say you will.' 



Then, as she strove to sift the twin replies 
That fought for utterance on her faltering 
tongue. 
Bending he knelt to her, in suppliant guise. 
And seized her hand and kissed it and out- 
flung 



yack .- One of Us 157 

One arm about her knees, and would not rise; 

But ever to cool palm his hot lips clung: 
Nor, kneeling, knew if fortune frowned or 

favoured — 
For in that moment Prudence almost wavered. 



An instant, flashed on her the wondrous thought : 
Here, was Romance — well worth the sacri- 
fice 

Of every puny bauble money-bought; 

Here, was the one true jewel beyond all price/ 

An instant, brushed her finger-tips athwart 
The lowered head of him. But in a trice 

Chill reason conquered; hand and heart with- 
drew. 

*I won't! I zvon'tl not even, Jack, for you.' 



* You are so young — you'll never understand 
What it would mean to me to lose all this. 
There are some women who might think it 
grand 
To throw away a million for a kiss — 
But I'm not built that way. No, leave my 
hand — 
Don't make things harder for me! I shall 
miss 
You so much. Jack dear — you've been sweet 

to me. 
But I can't do it, boy — it just can't be. 



IS8 yack ; One of Us 

'Don't think too badly of me ... I have 
cared . . . 
Cared more, perhaps, than you will ever 
guess . . . 
One day, you will be glad I haven't dared 
This thing you ask . . . Ah, don't! . . . 
just once then, yes, 
I'll kiss you. . . . There . . . Now go!' 

And so he fared. 
Recking not whither in his dumb distress. 
Out of her life. And Prudence caught the throbs 
Of him departing, choking back her sobs. 



CANTO XVI 



Warm wet wind from the South; the engine's 
roar; 
Mist and sorrows and sighs and broken 
pledges . . . 
Had you a soul that night, stout car who bore 

Your crazy master past the dark yew-hedges ? 
Were they alive, your sensate tyres that 
shore 
Their flattened trail along the grassy edges, 
That veered and checked and swerved their 

headlong travel, 
And forced the square-treads bite the shifting 
gravel ? 



His gloveless hands were numbed upon your 
wheel ; 
His feet were impotent upon your brake; 
And you it was, incarnate thing of steel. 
Whose conscious bonnet guessed the road to 
take. 

159 



i6o yack .- One of Us 

To him, 'twas all a dream-drive, hardly real — 
Bromley, its windows here and there 

awake — 
The lamp-lights curling Catfordwards — the 

trees — 
The villas swirling past him — and the breeze. 



As of herself, your sentient siren sang 
Her tocsin to the vivid, vanished faces. 

Loud in his ears, above the trolley's clang. 
Above the clamour of the market-places. 

Ever the ukase of dismissal rang; 
Always he saw his empress with the traces 

Of coming tears in down-dropt eyes, blue- 
Hdded — 

And never once your faithful Dunlops skidded. 



Your guardian chassis shunned the Vanguard's 
frisk : 
Loyal and true, you held the slippery track: 
Skated the dread curve of the Obelisk; 
Hurtled up New Cross hill; and brought him 
back 
To where big Ben's illuminated disc 

Shone fourfold welcomeness against the 
black; 
Found him his flat; and rested from your 

labours, 
Amidst the gossip of your garage-neighbours. 



yack ; One of Us i6i 

Scarce the fire smouldered in the dying ashes; 

Flapped in the gale each melancholy blind; 
Eerily clicked the loosened window-sashes. 

Fit home-coming indeed! but worse to find, 
The notes of those to whom their owing cash is 

More than fond hearts or mistresses unkind: 
High-piled upon the table-cloth they lay, 
Fell first-fruits of September's quarter-day. 



Vendors of smokes and jewellery and raiment. 
Each craved his draft of income's dwindled 
fount. 

Here Cartier failed to grasp what his delay meant. 
There Scholte rendered once again the count; 

Tremlett and Lobb besought a partial payment. 
While Sandorides pressed their full amount. 

Statement on statement, ravening for remittance ; 

Form-letters by the score — but ne'er a quit- 
tance ! 



Curse on the tradesmen! Let them wait and 
hope! 

It would be weeks, before they dared to sue. . . 
Not so the one who launched that envelope. 

That waspish rearguard of the overdue: 
'Twas bitter hard, on such a night to cope 

With the worn patience of the patient Jew, 
* Trusting he had advised the Messrs. Cox 
To meet his bill upon the seventh prox.' 



i62 yack ; One of Us 

*This was the final lap. His game was up. 
There were none left to love; and none, to 
lend. 
To the last dregs he'd drained his Fortune*s 
cup 
Naught but disgrace remained. It was the 
end.' 
Frightened he felt, and beat; a cowered pup, 
Without a prospect and without a friend; 
Powerless to make atonement for his sinning, 
A paupered oaf, foredoomed from the beginning. 



* Right from the start he'd never had a chance, 

Thanks to the blindness of a stupid system. 
His very birth had served but to enhance 
His uselessness. Since Eton had dismissed 
him. 
What had been left of life — except to dance 
Homage on girls who pitied as they kissed 
him? 
By Hudson, Thames, by Maine and Seine and 

Otter, 
Had he not always been a ghastly rotter.? 



'What was the point of going on with it? 

He knew a way — far better take it now . . . 
Only one way! It wouldn't hurt a bit. 

The walls were thick, they'd never hear the 
row — 



yack ; One of Us 163 

And if they did . . . He'd simply got to quit ; 
The Why was certain — certain as the How, 
There in his hurry, blued from breech to 

muzzle . . . 
The only sure solution of his puzzle. 



* Heavens, how easy — what a fine get-out! 
Hair-trigger cocked, and barrel 'twixt his 
teeth — 
Clenched on the foresight lest it slipped 
about. 
Shut eyes above, a finger curved beneath. 
One squeeze — and then, a stop to debt and 
doubt. . . ! 
Now Muse, that hatest cerecloth, bier and 
wreath. 
Fly quickly hither with thy metred magic 
To save him from a death so setly tragic. 



And thou, weird Goddess of Coincidence, 
Reft of whose aid the epic and the novel 

Must pass away! Who, of thine excellence. 
Canst raise a hapless hero from a hovel 

To thrones' and palaces' magnificence! 

Thou, at whose altars prostrate playwrights 
grovel. 

Answer! and send thy suppliant invoker 

One cable cased of governmental ochre ! 



164 yack .- One of Us 

Long time he knelt upon the cushioned fender, 
Gazing his last upon the pictured loves; 

Triquette's pert face; and Eve, flirtatious, 
slender — 
She's signed it: 'Just to thank you for the 
gloves * — 

The Vermonts, arms-entwining, triply tender; 
And Cora, calculating her 'aboves'; 

Lost Prudence, silver-framed for his desire . . . 

There, at her feet, he found the mystic wire! 



Now even they that practise hari-kari 

(Thus hari-kiri in our English ink) 
Would stay the stomach-slitting knife and 
tarry- 
To learn the smudged words pencilled on the 
pink. 
*What might it mean? Would Prue divorce 
and marry? 
Or had some backed 'outsider' roped the 
'chink'?' 
Trembling, he tore; and ere the folds uncreased. 
Read his the wealth of Ermyntrude — deceased. 



Benignant ruler of the puppet-play. 

Thine be my thanks for this astounding luck! 

The canto closes: wouldst thou have me say 
If Jack had flinched or soothly had the pluck 



yack .• One of Us i65 

To dare the madly-contemplated way 

And rise, in one great moment, from the 
ruck? 
Truth is, that public whom we bards deride, 
Yet pander to, is tired of suicide. 



CANTO XVII 



Six months and more from that unhallowed 
eve 

When, bowing to the edict of taboo, 
I slew Jack's aunt to compass his reprieve, 

He paced the platform length of Waterloo. 
There was a mourning band upon his sleeve, 

But in his pocket tinkled many a sou; 
Ergo et propter hoc he praised his gods 
For her who lay so safe beneath the sods. 



Reader, blame not the pitying Valkyrie 
Who checked his finger on the Webley's 
trigger 
With news of that most opportune expiry! 
Perpend the spared loins of the graveyard 
digger, 
Regard the coroner's unheld inquiry, 

And at Coincidence forbear to snigger! 
'Twas thanks to her the creditors of Jack 
Were paid full tale, and still he had no lack. 

i66 



yack ; One of Us 167 

More — he had sworn unto himself an oath 
That ne'er again should tradesmen of the 
West 
Gloat on his rendered statement's beanstalk 
growth, 
Nor Credit rear her hydra-headed crest 
O'er branching income, nor the giant sloth 
Of partial payments mow 'midst that be- 
quest. 
Now, if he speculated peradventure. 
It was but in some four-per-cent. debenture. 



He had renounced the Supper Club, the Chorus, 
The Monday Midget, Auction Bridge, and 
Oddy's, 
And all that makes the pouch of youth grow 
porous : 
He had plucked out the tallows and the 
toddies 
Which ruined us and them who frisked before 
us: 
So that a thousand county busybodies, 
Sipping their tea or walking with the guns. 
Voted him Bayard of the elder sons. 



For such the fervour of his reformation 
That only as the circled seasons brought 

Some urgent need of tailor's ministration 
Or bootmaker's, of tackle for his sport, 



i68 yack .• One of Us 

He visited the town of dead temptation. 

And even then, no single wayward thought 
Tempted the compass of his soul to veer 
Towards fool gambolling of yesteryear. 



None might have guessed, from his unruffled 
manner. 
That he had missed the early morn express. 
Calmly he sauntered, till the guard's green 
banner 
Signalled departure; then, his porter's stress 
Rewarded with the customary tanner, 
He stepped aboard with studied hasteless- 
ness. 
Slow as conveyance of a feed attorney, 
The long train jolted on its westward journey. 



He was alone. The reek of his cigar 
Curled in blue incense upwards. Silken- 
hosed, 
His feet reclined along the cushioned car. 
Midway *twixt sleep and wakefulness he 
dozed ; 
Till thought was loosed, and memory wandered 
far 
Into that past where evermore he posed 
As one who with the Fates had held high revel — 
A cynic shape, half Don Juan, half devil. 



I 



yack .• One of Us 169 

Each with its bursted bond or conquered call, 

'Neath lazy lids he watched the landmarks 

slide. 

* Sandown — the ring that held him erst in 

thrall 

Must find fresh plungers at the paddockside. 

Brooklands — no more he'd feel the banking fall 

And tilt beneath him as he took it wide 
And dropped into the straight at sixty. 

Woking — 
There slept the lady of the timely croaking. 



'How he had lived ! The women he had known ! 

The lips he'd kissed. The passions he'd 
inspired ! 
Red poppies in the wild oats he had sown, 

How they had flaunted once, how they had 
fired 
Their little hour; and then, how swiftly blown! 

Well, he was wiser now — yes, wise and tired. 
Love, at its best, was just a silly game: 
Varied, the players; but the strokes, the same. 



'Manicured paws, blacked lashes, powdered 

cheek. 

Torturing shoe 'neath hobbled garment's hem. 

Feigned looks, feigned locks, feigned pleasure 

and feigned pique. 

He knew them all too well — the paltry gem 



ijo yack .- One of Us 

That buys affection for a paltry week, 

The sighs, the suppers — and was done with 
them. 

What had they yielded him, save discon- 
tent? . . . 

And Ahce? Ah, but she was different! 



* Alice — how straight she sat the leaping cob! 

How sure she was, when skirted for the 
fray. 
She backed his net-strokes with the deadly lob! 

How sweet her wind-blown tresses' disarray 
What time they beagled where the sea-caves 
sob 

Beneath the flower-fringe over Ladram Bay! 
But best the evening vision of her, gowned 
In pale brocades her paler shoulders crowned! 



She was no London light-of-love who heckles 
Till the dear stalls are changed for dearer 
box: 
She was not always thinking of the shekels. 

Or criticising other women's frocks: 
She did not deem the sunshine fraught with 
freckles ; 
She did not deal in parrot-paradox: 
Not over smart — but then who wanted smart- 
ness ? 
Not intellectual — who cared for tartness? 



yack .• One of Us iji 

'Alice! the train was taking him to her, 
To his pet playmate, idolised of old; 

Into the West-land; herwards/ Andover 
Salisbury — Yeovil — Sidmouth. Fold on fold. 

Their home-hills opened. Soon, against the blur 
Of dappled skyline, turrets tinged with gold. 

He saw the Grange Towers rising. Budleigh 
station ! 

Porter and gaitered coachman grinned ovation. 



* Good-evening, Master Jack, you sure be late,' 
The whiplash flicked, the dogcart homeward 
sped. 

The keeper's eldest capped him at the gate. 
His unshot rooklets nested overhead. . . . 

'It would be his, one day, this ringed estate. . . . 
And she should share it.' Conscious of his 
tread. 

The kennelled clumbers woke in whimpered joy: 

Kee-ow, the pensive peacocks cried, Kee-oy. 



That night, the polished soup-tureen reflected, 
Around his father's hospitable table, 

The belles of Budleigh's countryside collected — 
Gertrude and Constance, Geraldine and Mabel: 

But, of the one so eagerly expected. 
No dulcet lisp meandered through the babel; 

And he might only lift a secret chalice 

Unto the souvenir of absent Alice. 



IJ2 yack ; One of Us 

Hour-long it stretched, that mammoth meal of 
Mammon — 

From Canteloupe and puree vermicelli, 
By mayonnaises of the Severn salmon, 

Through aspicked entree, sorbet, joint and 
jelly, 
Past trifle and past savouries of gammon. 

To strawberries and bloom of moscatelli. 
At length the beckoned ladies rose ; and, brought 
In soft-foot reverence, appeared the port. 



But e*en the circling of the cut decanter — 
The ruby glow of Cockburn — roused him not, 

To add his dicta to the bachelors* banter. 
'What if there was another claimant hot 

Upon the heiress of the cocoa-planter, 
And failure once again must be his lot? 

What if new love, as old loves, should disparage ? 

As Prudence mocked desire; so AHce, marriage?' 



Right through the thick of the post-prandial 
Bridge 

His mind went out beyond the doubled spade 
To those enshrining towers behind the ridge. 

Where even then, perchance, some county blade 
Above the piano bent in sacrilege. 

Turning Tschaikowsky for his darling maid. 
There was amazement in his partners' faces 
To see his led queens presaging held aces. 



yack ; One of Us 173 

The Colonel crimsoned, and the Vicar muttered ; 
Thankful, were they, when midnight sounded 
'Cease.' 
Came coats, came wraps ; fit gratitude was stut- 
tered ; 
The last wheel rolled. Then, revelling in 
release 
Jack sought his bed. The draught- tossed candle 
guttered. 
And vanished. Slumber poured its healing 
peace 
Upon the eyelids of my hero-boy. 
Kee-ow, the drowsy peacocks cried, Kee-oy. 



It is the instant of the evening rise. 

The sun-rim slips behind the corn-clad hill; 
Adown the vale a homing heron flies; 

Delicious breezes crinkle mead and rill. 
Now from his sedgy lairs, wherein he lies 

Daylong content to flap the scarlet gill, 
The Monarch of the Pool swims sauntering out. 
Sovereign-contemptuous of the lesser trout. 



Monarch, heed well the greenheart's fatal 
flicker ! 

Let eyes be keen to know the man-made dun 
That falls so softly where the real flies bicker 

Below the arching bridge of Otterton! 



174 y^ck ; One of Us 

Else shall the cruel creel of Hardy's wicker 
Enfold your corpse before the set of sun; 
Else shall the nether water's overlord 
Feel the constraining yoke of Rowland Ward. 



In the marsh-pasture of the Devon kine — 
So milking-proud that none dare doom them 
veal — 
Low-crouched, Jack spies the tell-tale bubbles 
shine. 
The rod-point sways; metallic, clicks the reel; 
Hums through its rings the deftly lengthened 
line; 
Far-flung and true, outcurves the feathered 
steel. 
Now — if there's power in hackle, cord or oil — 
Mark, and be swift to strike the speckled spoil! 



Barely a foot above that greedy throat! 

Another second, and those jaws shall shut! 
Watch where the traihng feathers cock and float. 

Watch for the shimmer of the straightened 
gut! — 
A swirl ! a leap ! a flash of silver coat ! 

The greenheart quivers to its agate butt . . . 
Struck, and well struck! The barbed death 

has him fast: 
Let but the playing justify the cast. 



yack ; One of Us 775 

Taut-line until your top-joint nearly smashes, 
There's danger where the waterweeds grow 
rank ! — 
Slack him ! — but 'ware another of those 
brashes! — 
Look out! he'll slip you if he gains the 
bank] — 
Reel him again — quick ! — almost spent he 
splashes — 
Give him the butt, man ! — roll him on his 
flank — 
And ere those Titan struggles start afresh. 
Pluck from your belt, and ply, the landing-mesh ! 



Zest of all zests — no Muse can give to me. 
Whose casts are far from Angler Izaak's rite. 

Who may not know that tingling ecstasy 
When the three-pounder, fished-for night by 
night. 

Shall never wrench another Wickham free. 
Proudly Jack stands, still flushing from the 
fight . . . 

And lo! adown the marge of Otter's stream, 

Appears the goddess of his journey's dream. 



Swiftly she moves; behind her sweeping skirt 
The kingcups bow : beneath her ample straw, 
With loosened curls audacious zephyrs flirt. 
She seems a Dryad of the inner shaw; 



1^6 yack .• One of Us 

Save that arch mouth, disparted, overpert, 

BeUes the chill of Artemisian law; 
Save that the smiles in azure orbs bewray 
The artless damsel of a later day. 



Hard at her heels, majestic, deep of jowl, . 

Ambles forlorn the melancholy Dane, 
Whom hawkers hate and tramps that nightly 
prowl. 
From Axwell Kennels by the northern main, 
Where the cropped Porthos throats a prizeless 
growl. 
His line is traced through Redgrave's noblest 
strain. 
Though softer limbs may hold romance in fee, 
The hound's display the nobler pedigree. 



The vole plops bedwards, and the pigeons 
coo; 
The rushes murmur and the ripples eddy. 
Where one head bent before, are bending 
two, 
Above those great gills stiffening already. 
Eyes that admire, meet other eyes that woo; 
Hands that would touch, meet other hands 
unsteady; 
Lips that speak only of a captured fish. 
Would fain give utterance to a fonder wish. 



yack .• One of Us 777 

The sun is down. The river smoothes to glass. 

Into the leafy woodlands, dark and cool, 
Where hart's-tongue fern and foxglove fleck the 
grass — 

Lover and lass and Monarch of the Pool, 
And silver-brindled guardian — they pass. 

Dear Alice, thou who lov'dst him yet at 
school. 
Will thy touch still the passions that destroy? 
Kee-ow, the prescient peacocks cry, Kee-oy. 



CANTO XVIII 



Up the broad road that long-dead legions 
wrought 

To blaze their trail across the hedgeless shires. 
When first from fort to rampart-guarded fort 

The vincula of Caesar's outpost fires, 
Hill-top to hill-top semaphoring, taught 

Rome's ordered warfare to our woaded sires; 
Ride, in that dewy hour when chores begin, 
My hero and his latest heroine. 



Smoothly her round throat nestles to the stock; 

Under the bowler's brim, each ringless ear 
Shows cream atween the brown of twisted 
lock 

Scarcely her fine foot sways the stirrup-gear, 
As lithe hips lissom to the saddle-shock. 

Straight-poised, she sits — a Devon hunts- 
man's peer; 
And in the shoe-prints of her chestnut steed 
Lopes the gigantic brute of Redgrave breed. 

178 



yack ; One of Us i^g 

Their snaffles jingle challenge to the morn, 
The waking ploughman hears their loud 
hooves clatter. 
Past stream and cot and hedgerows of green 
thorn, 
Past glades that echo to the magpie's chatter. 
They spur to meet the scented breezes borne 
Across wide common-lands where conies 
scatter. 
White scuts a-bobbing o'er the purple heather. 
As they go gallopading on together. 



Now they draw rein beside some marshy brink 
Where, welling upwards from perennial 
sources. 

Gushes a fount for thirsty beast to drink: 
Then on anew they urge their eager horses; 

Till, tired of tangling herb wherein they sink. 
The hound-pads lag and falter on their 
courses. 

Thus they twain come a-riding, skirt to knee, 

By leafy sanctuary at Woodbury. 



They sit them down upon the sloping sward: 
Their tethered steeds stand cropping at the 
fern: 
Prone at their feet, the Dane-dog heaves his ward. 
Through aureate haze below them, they 
discern 



i8o yack ; One of Us 

The argent streak of Exe Vale, hamlet-starred. 
And — mile on mile of cornland, wood and 

burn — 
The known tilth opening, page by harrowed 

page, 
The deep-loamed acres of their heritage. 



Westwards and east the skyline curves forsaken ; 

Never a soul upon the earth but they: 
And what to them are eggs that chill, or bacon, 

Or cosied coffee on the breakfast-tray. 
When their twin hearts, with mutual longing 
shaken. 

Stir to the magic of the growing day? 
When her glance dares not face, aglow in his. 
The dazzlement of holy mysteries? 



One bared hand props the dimple of her chin ; 

The other rests upon the turf beside him. 
Sweet hands — not keen to grasp — as those of 
sin, 
Whose overwhiteness wove the snares that 
tied him — 
But firm, round-wristed, capable, brown skin 
Kissed of the sun. If pose do not deride 
him. 
Nor shyness simper for flirtation's sake. 
Those taper finger-tips are his to take. 



yack .• One of Us i8i 

Sudden, he holds them; tender, tentative. 
He knows their pressure answer: palm to 
palm 

Touches and Hngers. *Ah, how good to Hve, 
Her hand in his forever!* Now his arm 

Ventures her waist: he feels her body give 
One tiny thrill of maidenly alarm: 

Her eyelids flutter down: his senses swim: 

With a contented sigh, she yields to him. 



The horses watch them sitting silent there; 

The wise hound gazes, yellow-orbed for pique. 
A myriad sun-motes dance upon her hair. 

Dance on the bloom of her averted cheek: 
'Alice,' he whispers, 'tell me! Do you care?* 

Her lips are parted, but she may not speak; 
For all life's prayers have come to pass with 

this . . . 
At last her eyes meet his . . . and so, they 
kiss. 



EPILOGUE 



Hero, farewell! The microbe-muse lies slain, 
Slain by the venom of her own attack: 

Now to my long-neglected Gods of Gain, 
A beggared suppliant I hie me back. 

We meet no more, dear first-born of my brain: 
Mammon calls citywards! — and yet, ah 
Jack, 

There is a longing, in this soul of me, 

To know if Fate has chained or set you free. 



Times come, my spirit seems to see you stand. 
Bound beyond hope, before the lilied altar; 
While the last grains of singlenesses sand 

Ebb with each solemn sentence of the psalter; 
And the packed matrons of the Devon land 
Serry their ranks lest you should prove 
defaulter ... 
What mean those phantom strains of Lo^ 

hengrin — 
Marriage, or memory of elder sin? 

182 



yack .• One of Us 183 

Was reformation but another phase? 

Or did you fare the straight path and the 
narrow, 
To bonded bliss and ordered county ways? 
Is there now sprung from hero-loins and 
marrow 
An heirling Jack to cheer your riper days, 
And bear the name that Eton flecked — to 
Harrow ? 
Do you hunt foxes and adore your spouse, 
Or take the saner view of wedding-vows ? 



There is no torch to light the road you 
went : 
No fairy voice to whisper in mine ears 
If cocoa-kisses kept you continent 

Down the long orbit of the sober years; 
Or if you 'scaped from that entangle- 
ment, 

In one last poignant scene of tempest- 
tears 
That left my boy ashamed, my Alice 

wilted ; 
Or if she was the jiltress — you, the jilted. 



My work Is done. Let lesser authors trace 
Their puppets' progress through the trodden 
fields 



184 yack .• One of Us 

To Haven-Hymen's trite abiding-place; 

For others, let the wedding bells be pealed: 
You were the dream-child of a little space. 

And, as a dream's, your end is not revealed; 
Though I . . . but there, a poet's speculations 
Are boring — boring as his recitations. 



FINIS 



JUL 8 1912 



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